James wrote A Life Inside column while serving sentence for murder and later edited Inside Time newspaper
Erwin James, the writer of a Guardian column about life in prison, has died, it has been announced.
James, whose real name was Jim Monahan, was convicted of murder in 1984 and spent 20 years in prison. He wrote the Guardian column A Life Inside from 2000 until his release in 2004, and continued to write extensively for the newspaper afterwards, offering a glimpse of the reality of life behind bars and inspiring a generation of prison reform campaigners.
