Detention: A rookie teacher. The toughest prison school in Australia.

When Ralph Jackman swapped his career as a sports reporter for life as a teacher, he expected yard duty and parent-teacher nights. Instead, he found himself behind the razor wire of Melbourne's Parkville Youth Detention Centre, teaching literacy and numeracy to some of the nation's most vulnerable and damaged boys.

This raw and powerful memoir takes you inside a world few educators ever see, both shocking and inspiring, with humour and heartbreak, and moments of connection that make teaching matter. But it's also the story of a system failing its most desperate kids - and a call to action by a teacher who refuses to look away.