Long Bay Jail in New South Wales has long been regarded as Australia’s “toughest prison,” and in the 1980s and 1990s it became notorious as the site of the prison system’s AIDS wing, initially called the Malabar Assessment Unit and grimly referred to by inmates as “death row.” Press coverage from the era documents tense confrontations as prison officers staged strikes and protests when inmates labelled “AIDS carriers” were not segregated and were moved into the main population, reflecting both genuine fear of infection among staff and vocal hostility from other prisoners unwilling to share space with those infected.

Within that fraught environment, individual stories emerged: transsexual inmate Tanya Spence forming a relationship with fellow inmate David on the segregation wing, and Neil Carroll, a convicted armed robber who redirected his  ...