Ex-inmates return for another look

It takes guts to come back to Fremantle Prison after doing time between its limestone walls.

Guide Matthew Bateman-Graham said former inmates sometimes made themselves known to him during his tours of the World Heritage-listed prison, which was opened in 1859 to hold convicts and this week celebrates 20 years as a tourist attraction.

Almost all had one thing in common: a new approach to life.

"I think it's brave when they come back, they have turned a corner in their lives, they come back with wives and children and just want to acknowledge a previous part of their life," Mr Bateman-Graham said.

Tours of Fremantle Prison began in January 1992, just two months after the maximum security jail was decommissioned.

Mr Bateman-Graham said on his first tour six years ago a visitor said he had been locked up in 1987 for not paying $100 in parking fines.

"He had a cell on the very top floor, which was the highest part of Fremantle and he could look over into the harbour and this was the time of the America's Cup," he said.

"With the radio on he had the best view of the race goings-on."

Fremantle Prison executive manager Bevan Beaver said 2.7 million visitors had walked through the doors - and out again - in the past 20 years.