Shortcut: Inside Pentridge Prison with Ray Mooney

Summary

Podcast Summary: Australian True Crime

Episode: Shortcut: Inside Pentridge Prison with Ray Mooney

Host: Meshel Laurie
Guest: Ray Mooney
Date: July 12, 2026

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Overview

In this gripping "Shortcut" episode, Meshel Laurie interviews celebrated author, playwright, and former inmate Ray Mooney about his formative years inside Melbourne’s notorious Pentridge Prison. Ray openly discusses his conviction for rape at age 19, his journey of self-acceptance and accountability, and how Pentridge shaped his life’s trajectory as an advocate for prisoners’ rights and as an academic. The episode provides an unflinching look at the brutal reality of life behind bars in Australia’s most infamous prison during the late 1960s and ‘70s, the culture clash between entrenched criminal traditions and incoming waves of change, and the pivotal moments that steered Ray from conviction to contribution.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Ray’s Admission and Accountability

• Ray discusses the stigma and difficulty of fully admitting to, and discussing, the crime that led to his imprisonment.
  • Attributed Quote (Ray Mooney, 02:15):
    “Well, it's the worst crime you can ever admit to, and that's why everyone claims they're innocent. And I did the same thing... But the truth, the real truth was no, I made bad decisions in the moment... they were never, ever justifiable to try and diminish my own responsibility. And I came to terms with that.”
• Ray has since spoken to young people about consent, using his own story as a warning and lesson.

Transformation Inside Prison

• Ray found opportunity for personal growth and education in prison, becoming the first Australian prisoner to start and complete a degree while incarcerated (04:06).
  • Attributed Quote (Ray Mooney, 04:12):
    “I knew the day I went into prison that I was going to be there for a long time... the only way that people can be assessed is through what they have done, either through their wrongdoings or their right doings. So I set out to achieve as much as I could in prison.”

The Social Hierarchy & Culture in Pentridge

• The prison was sharply divided by “old crooks” and up-and-coming young criminals, with a strict code among both “screws” (guards) and inmates (05:06).
• Younger inmates, often survivors of brutal boys' homes, were tougher and more violent—products, in Ray’s view, of institutional abuse exposed by later royal commissions (05:47).
  • Attributed Quote (Ray Mooney, 06:03):
    “If ever you're gonna pick a fight with someone, don't pick a fight with a kid who's been through the boys homes because... every day of their life they... had to fight. And they turned out to be ferocious fighters.”

Divisions within the Prison

• Clear social and practical separations:
  • A Division: “Sucks and dogs,” “square heads,” first-timers, and prisoners involved in rehabilitation and night classes.
  • B Division: “Boob heads, the yo-yos,” repeat offenders with little access to rehabilitation.
  • H Division: Extreme solitary, brutality, and severe discipline (06:41).
• Ray highlights the arbitrary and cruel nature of allocation and discipline within these divisions.

Brutality and the Breaking of Rocks

• Ray details the physical and psychological torment of H Division—immediate rock-breaking duty, enforced silence, continuous strip searches, and systematic beatings (07:27).
  • Attributed Quote (Ray Mooney, 07:27):
    “A hospital, the moment you become a patient, they'll take your clothes away... They’ll completely dominate your routine. Well, Hates Division worked the same way. The moment you got to Hates Division, you received what was called a reception biff. Everyone was bast shitless... It was brutal. You got bashed for two weeks.”
• Prisoners broke bluestone rocks daily, which were allegedly used for road screenings (“the highway to Sydney”) (09:39).

The Jenkinson Inquiry & Strike Action

• Ray recounts the lead-up to the famous Jenkinson Inquiry into discipline and brutality in Pentridge (1972–73), which caused widespread unrest (10:00).
• A pivotal moment: Ray is asked to be a spokesperson for A Division when prisoners consider joining a strike. He leads them into the strike, resulting in his immediate transfer to H Division (12:06).
  • Attributed Quote (Ray Mooney, 13:13):
    “Cell door opens and there they are, the security squad. Okay, get your gear, Mooney. You're off the H Division.”
• Despite hardship, Ray managed to sit—naked in the cold, as demanded by staff for fear of cheating—two university exams in H Division, passing both (13:40).

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Memorable Quotes

• On self-acceptance:
  “No matter what situations existed as antecedents, they were never, ever justifiable to try and diminish my own responsibility.” – Ray Mooney (02:15)

• On institutional violence:
  “...This was wheeze your eye, you know, goodbye. Knows like these kids were... ferocious fighters.” – Ray Mooney (06:03)

• On rock-breaking labor:
  “You break rocks immediately. The first day that you are marched down and ordered to break rocks.” – Ray Mooney (09:00)

• On the strike and its consequences:
  “...They said, yes, we will, Ray. So I went in and said, right, we're on strike. First time ever. Cell door opens and there they are, the security squad. Okay, get your gear, Mooney. You're off the H Division.” – Ray Mooney (13:13)

• On resilience and hardship:
  “They forced me to sit in the middle of winter in the nude so I wouldn’t cheat... Oh, I passed them, though. I did three exams there.” – Ray Mooney (13:40)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [02:01] – Host Meshel Laurie expresses admiration for Ray’s openness on his crime.
• [02:15–03:11] – Ray’s candid admission of guilt, responsibility, and the self-analysis that followed.
• [03:28–04:12] – Ray’s explanation of how he transformed his prison time through study.
• [05:24–06:41] – Exploration of the generational divide, tough upbringing of young inmates, and prison social codes.
• [07:27–09:49] – First-hand description of H Division brutality and daily routines.
• [10:00–13:13] – The climate of unrest around the Jenkinson Inquiry, the A Division strike, and Ray’s resulting punishment.
• [13:40] – Ray’s perseverance through harassment (nude exams) and academic achievement.

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Notable Moments

• The unapologetic and forthright manner in which Ray recounts his past, refusing to excuse his actions, sets the moral tone of the episode.
• The “reception biff” and “rock-breaking” are described not as metaphor, but as literal, humiliating, and violent procedures emblematic of both institutional discipline and abuse.
• The episode highlights how rehabilitation, education, and personal accountability—even in the most brutal circumstances—can create opportunities for redemption and advocacy.

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Conclusion

This episode offers rare, firsthand insight into the lost world of Australian prison life at Pentridge in its most notorious era. Ray Mooney’s honesty, resilience, and eventual purpose-driven transformation make his story both a cautionary tale and a testament to the possibility of change even within the harshest regimes. For listeners interested in the intersection of crime, punishment, trauma, and reform, Ray’s journey provides powerful, unvarnished perspectives.

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Transcript

[A]

This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie for most of Ray Mooney's life, he has been a celebrated author, lecturer and playwright. In his early life, though, he was an inmate at the notorious Pentridge Prison. Inside, he became a spokesperson for prisoner rights and became close to some of Australia's most notorious career criminals, including Christopher Dale Flannery, aka Mr. Rentokil. Ray found himself inside Pentridge because he was convicted of rape when he was 19 years old, a fact of his life that he never shies away from, and he's since lectured to young students about the importance of understanding consent. Ray joins us to discuss this period of his life and his experiences inside the College of Knowledge, Pentridge Prison. This is Australian True Crime we acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation and a warning that this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

[B]

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[A]

There's not many blokes who, even if they've changed their way of thinking about sexuality and about what constitutes rape, would own up to it and want to talk to people about it. I've never known anyone else who's wanted to do that.

[D]

Well, it's the worst crime you can ever admit to, and that's why everyone claims they're innocent. And I did the same thing when I was caught. I claimed I was innocent, tried every trick in the book to get out of it. And I was guilty of rape in 1967, served seven and a half years for it and deserved every day. But I sort of looked at it properly and tried to understand myself, my own background, my antecedents, to see if there were any things other than the fact that I just made terrible decisions in the moment that were Responsible, and it's easy to justify your own situation. But the truth, the real truth was no, I made bad decisions in the moment. No matter what situations existed as antecedents, they were never, ever justifiable to try and diminish my own responsibility. And I came to terms with that.

[A]

Part of what you did in prison was to sort of come out of yourself as a writer and as an academic, isn't it? I mean, tell us about that. How did all of that come about in jail in Pentridge, of all places, which at that time in the 70s was an incredibly brutal place that came

[D]

about over a long. I was there for seven and a half years and that was like osmosis. It took a long time. It didn't happen overnight. It happened because of my involvement with certain people who I liked and who I respected. It happened because of what I saw happening or what I heard about happening to other prisoners. That's the violence you talk about, which was hidden from the mainstream of Pentridge, by the way. Not all Pentridge was violent and not all Pentridge was terrible. Some of the best times I've ever spent in my life were spent in Pentridge, unquestionably.

[A]

I've never heard anyone say that before.

[D]

I was the first Australian prisoner to start and complete a degree while they were in prison.

[B]

Right.

[D]

There was a reason behind that. I knew the day I went into prison that I was going to be there for a long time. I knew that when the time came, I would be assessed of what I had done while I was in prison, as to whether or not I would have been given parole when I was due for it. I also knew, and I worked this out straight away, that the only way that people can be assessed is through what they have done, either through their wrongdoings or their right doings. So I set out to set myself up to achieve as much as I could in prison, so that when the time came for assessment for parole, I would have being given parole. And that's exactly what I did. So I straightaway got into study.

[A]

Cause there were also. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think during that period. What year did you go in?

[D]

I went in in 68, I think.

[A]

During that period, weren't there some old, old crooks as well? So it was a very sort of old, old school.

[D]

Absolutely.

[A]

Between the older screws and the older crooks, there was a real set of rules that had been set up. And along with everyone else in the late 60s and early 70s, you younger blokes were all about change, revolution.

[D]

That's how I fin becoming friends with a lot of the young heavies, the up and coming heavies. Cause they saw the same thing. They hated these guys. They hated these old crims with a vengeance. Because they'd spend their whole days in there making coffee for the screws. And the young crims coming through, you know, had come from the boys homes were a tough group, A really tough and up and coming group.

[A]

Really tough group. Yeah, they were for the worst possible reasons. These guys we now know, thanks to the Royal commission, that the boys homes were just hotbeds for all kinds of abuse, especially sexual abuse.

[B]

Totally. Yeah.

[A]

And a lot of the most violent crims of the 70s and 80s had come through that process.

[D]

If ever you're gonna pick a fight with someone, don't pick a fight with a kid who's been through the boys homes because every day of their life they. This is the fighters in the boys homes. They had to fight. And they turned out to be ferocious fighters. But none of this Marcus of Queensbury, like this was wheeze your eye, you know, goodbye. Knows like these kids were fed inking because they fought every day of their lives. Now back in the day, Adavision was for what you would call an inverted commas. The sucks and the dogs, the good guys, the square heads. Those who had never done anything wrong and were carefully selected by the authorities. Which is true. Bloody true.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

B Division was for the. The boob heads, the yo yos. Those who are going to be in and out of jail for the rest of their lives. Right, okay. You know, the hard timers. And A Division had everything. It had all the night classes and rehabilitation that existed. B Division had nothing.

[A]

So you were A Division because you were young. First timer.

[D]

First timer. H Division was one of these places that you only heard about if you hadn't been there. You either had to believe or disbelieve what you heard about the place. And I knew about how bad it was because all my friends had been down H Division and they'd had the shit punched down at them really badly.

[A]

The thing I find really hard to get my head around is the literal breaking of rocks. Yeah, like that's like a cartoon to me. What is that?

[D]

Well, look, the moment you go to Hates Division, think of how a hospital works. A hospital, the moment you become a patient, they'll take your clothes away, they will reorganize your time schedule. They'll organise what you're allowed to eat and what you're not allowed to eat. They'll completely dominate your routine. Well, Hates Division worked the same way. The moment you got to Hates Division, you received what was called a reception biff. Everyone was bast shitless. And you were forced to march around this quadrangle at double pace. You are never allowed to look an officer in the eye. You had to wear their clothing, which had a badge over the heart, front and back. Jokingly. This is where we shoot you, where we have to shoot you. You had to wear a hat pulled down over your eyes. You always had to. Everything you did was on double pace. You had to always find your spot. In other words, if any officer came anywhere near you, find your spot. Mooney. Which was in front of you. An ex. An imaginary ex, but then a real ex. In. In other words. The rules and regulations were horrific. You were strip searched continuously. You never bite with another crim. This is when you first went down there. You were bound by this incredible rules and reg and it was brutal. You got bashed for two weeks. Everyone got bashed for up to a week to two weeks. Then they drop off you because it was a floating population. So there were people coming in and out all the time after your like

[A]

2 week whatever initial flogging period where they're trying to break you. Is that when you get the work duty of breaking the rocks?

[D]

No, you break rocks immediately. You're straight away. The first day that you are marched down and ordered to break rocks straight

[A]

away, it was literally blue stone rocks

[D]

with different size sledgehammers. The first part of the morning you use an 8 to 12 pound. In the afternoon, you then broke the rocks that you had broken into small chips with a smaller hammer into smaller screenings. At the end of the day, you swept your yard up and you pushed it out through a chute and the yard was inspected by the screws that were there. And you were marched back to your cell. You'll march back to your cell for lunch too, by the way.

[A]

Okay. What were the rocks for?

[D]

Well, we thought we were building a highway to Sydney. The screenings to Sydney. That's what we used to joke. They were just for screenings, you know, screenings are the blue metal chips you'll see on the side of roads.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

Yeah. Just screenings. Yeah, they're about the size of your thumb. We need to be aware that there were varying periods of brutality throughout its existence. When it first opened up until 1968, it was a terrible institution. It was the worst place on the planet. Worse than anything you can imagine in Port Arthur. It Was terrible. Crimson found, hung, suspected, you know, suicides and what have you. It was a terrible place. Everyone was terrified of it. A couple of people start to play up. One prisoner gets bashed terribly and gets taken immediately to the Royal Melbourne Hospital via the prison where all the prisoners see him. And that sets up all these incredible riots and explosions. And the end result is they have a royal commission into brutality in heats division, plus discipline within Pentridge. But basically they have this royal commission under a bloke called Jenkinson and it's called the Jenkinson Inquiry and the results are that hates. The vision slightly changes because awareness is made. It's daily reported in newspapers what happens in Pentridge in the interim. There are more riots in Pentridge over mistreatment of prisoners and the fact that they were worried that the Jenkinson Inquiry was going to be a whitewash. Jenkinson hasn't released his findings yet. This is 1973 and it was started in 1972 and he hasn't released his findings. So Pentridge is in uproar. I'm still in A division and A division and all the other divisions, all the divisions have gone on strike and they're expecting a division to join them. A division has never been on strike because the governor has always threatened if a division ever goes on strike they will lose their night classes. And. And everyone knew that was going to be the case.

[A]

And they're square heads by nature and

[D]

most of the lifers and lifers are the people who you sort of arguably look after because they're there for the rest of their lives, right?

[A]

And they don't want to end up down age division, that's for sure.

[D]

Definitely not. So we're all in the yards and the prisoners are talking to me. And at that stage, I suppose I was a bit of a voice in terms of if something needed to be said. I was never scared to say it. And there's dissension in A division. All half the crims are saying, look, we should be supporting the rest of the jail. And they come to me and ask if I'd be a spokesperson. The chief of the division comes to me and says, ray, will you speak to the men please, and tell them that they need to go back to work. And I talked to them and I said, look, okay, what do you want to do? And half them wanted to go back to work, half them wanted to go on strike. They said, look, we'll leave it to you, you make the decision. I said, will you back me no matter what happens. They said, yes, we will, Ray. So I went in and said, right, we're on strike. First time ever. Cell door opens and there they are, the security squad. Okay, get your gear, Mooney. You're off the H Division.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[D]

Oh, yeah, straight down the H Division. That's where, by the way, they forced me to sit. I was doing a university course at the time in social science. Degree in social science, and they forced me to sit in the middle of winter in the nude so I wouldn't cheat. Oh, God. Oh, no. In case, like, oh, they thought I was going to cheat, I said, yeah, right. You know, also a bit of fun

[A]

for the staff, no doubt.

[D]

Oh, it was a total joke.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And making it just that, that degree of extra difficulty to do the exam.

[D]

Oh, I passed them, though. I did three exams there. No, two. Two.

[A]

Thank you to our guest today, Ray Mooney. If you'd like to find out more about Ray or buy some of his books, you should take yourself over to raymooney.com this is Australian True Crime. We'll be back next week. Thank you for joining us. If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 131114 or contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800-Respect. Org AU. Indigenous Australians can contact 13 Yarn on 139276 or 13yarn.org AU.