Emma Pinch has a look round HMP Birmingham...
It's like a cross between a hospital and army barracks. Black and white tiled floor, a picture of the Queen, mint green walls and sliding doors.
But beyond reception is the first indication you're in a prison. The first formidable metal grill - albeit in a green-and-cream 1960s style design.
The first thing you notice is the heat - it's stifling - and the constant clanging and jingling of metal doors and keys.
HMP Birmingham, in Winson Green Road, was built in 1849 for adult males. The day I visited there were 1,420 prisoners in there, with more expected in the afternoon.
In 2001 the prison was tagged 'the worst in the country' by the Inspector of Prisons. It has undergone a multi-million pound upgrade, creating an additional 450 prisoner places, and embarked on a programme of resettlement and rehabilitation.
In C-wing, the old section, the cells have narrow doors and tiny, flat, arched windows. Inside there's a TV, toilet and two bunks.
Floors are separated by a cream-painted metal grill with solid, cream-painted low walls. The atmosphere seems almost cosy.
Bizarrely, many prisoners appreciate the wing's period charm and apparently prefer it to newer wings, with bigger windows and white furniture.
In a cramped cell I glimpse a ripped out picture of a bikini-clad Sophie Anderton on a locker.
C-wing group manager, Keith Lowe, good-humouredly outlined some of the more ghoulish features.
He instructs me to jump on a certain spot in his office.
"Sounds hollow doesn't it?" he grinned. This was the room, he explained, where hangings took place and below was the trapdoor through which the bodies fell onto a trolley.
Contractors in the 1980s kept digging into blocks of lime housing the corpses of unfortunate prisoners, some with boots and hair.
"When I came here, 23 years ago, there was a cleaner who had been in the cell next door in 1960 and sentenced to death. It was commuted to life imprisonment. He always said, 'boss, when I was waiting to be topped...'
On arrival, prisoners get a hot meal and shower and are checked by a drugs worker.
Everything is designed to minimise any opportunity for self-harm. They have a breakfast pack of bread, butter, cereal and plastic cutlery.
Roll call is 7am where prison officers peer into the cells to take a head count. At 7.30am the cleaners go to work and at 7.55am they go to their workshops and training.
