Prison is supposed to be the means by which a convicted criminal pays his or her debt to society. In reality, most of what prison entails is a corrosive, destructive, costly waste of time. Great news, then, that Vicky Pryce is writing a memoir covering the eight weeks she spent behind bars out of her original eight-month sentence for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Her time inside may have been relatively short, but it would have been long enough to give her a strong flavour of what imprisonment means for a woman in modern Britain.
Pryce is an articulate professional economist and already a published writer; her first book, Greekonomics, was "an interesting and accessible polemic" on the euro crisis and Greek politics, according to the Guardian. If her prison memoir – working title, Prisonomics – is as serious and insightful, she will be giving something truly worthwhile back to society.
Often controversial, prison memoirs can be a valuable learning tool for those who get their information about prison mainly from the popular media. They can also lead to much-needed reforms. Although frowned upon by the authorities (when I asked a prison governor for permission to write my column A Life Inside for the Guardian 15 years into my life sentence, I was initially told that I should "choose another hobby"), good prison writing educates as well as entertains.
One of the very best prison memoirs was Dry Guillotine by René Belbenoît, who spent 15 years in the prison colony of French Guiana, repeatedly escaping and being sent back, before eventually making his way to Los Angeles. While on the run, Belbenoît travelled on foot through dense jungle and in a canoe on the open sea, all the time carrying his 30lb manuscript wrapped in oilskin. Undoubtedly, his memoir contributed to France's decision to end its transportation policy.
Another celebrated prisoner author was Jack Henry Abbott, whose letters to Norman Mailer during his incarceration became the book In the Belly of the Beast (1981). Like Belbenoît, Abbot's only motivation for writing was to reveal the reality of life in prison. This type of book, written while the writer is actually doing time, is arguably the best source of authentic prison literature. Although more recently Jonathan Aitken's Pride and Perjury, penned after his 18-month term for perverting the course of justice, gave an honest and compelling insight into prison life. Aitken recounted praying on his knees on his first night in Belmarsh, while prisoners shouted out of the window what they were going to do to him. Jeffrey Archer's prison diaries made him a reputed £15m, and referenced the crime committed by every prisoner he came into contact with, but conveniently omitted to mention his own perjury.
Another terrific piece of post-prison writing is Forget You Had a Daughter, by Sandra Gregory, who was originally condemned to death in Thailand for smuggling drugs, before her sentence was commuted to 25 years and she was transferred to the UK to finish off her time. Gregory's visceral and gripping story is probably the definitive work on what prison does to a woman.
But Pryce's economics background will give her book a particular value. "I have some strong views on how the prison system works, especially with regard to how it treats women," she said after her release on Monday. Her book "will analyse how prison works, and should work, very much from an economic perspective". Focusing on the exorbitant amount the taxpayer pays for our failing system (reoffending alone accounts for between £9.5bn and £13bn a year) may be just what politicians need to initiate real reform in our prisons.
• This article was corrected on 15 May 2013 to correct the spelling of French Guiana, from French Guyana.
