Born and raised in Toronto's Regent Park, Edward Hertrich left high school in grade 11 to start working. A year later, he started dealing drugs in earnest, beginning a criminal career that resulted in him being incarcerated for thirty-five of his next forty years. In Wasted Time, Hertrich describes his time behind bars. Once considered a serious threat to public safety, he spent much of his time at Millhaven Institution, a maximum-security prison that housed four hundred of Canada's most dangerous inmates, including murderers, bank robbers, and gang members, and - for most of his stay there - a gang of sadistic guards.