Blue Skies on Jail Walls

This project aims to collect narratives of kindness from women with lived experience of incarceration through creative writing workshops facilitated by Dr Adelle Sefton-Rowston and Yvette Holt in Cairns, Townsville and Darwin. Associate Professor Glenn Dawes and Adelle will measure the effects of kindness on the participants’ mental wellbeing through the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. Alongside the analysis of data, creative research will be conducted through creative writing workshops and from the outputs produced by those women seeking to publish their stories in an edited book of voices from the inside. The workshops will engage participants in creative writing exercises that encourage social dreaming to contribute to better understandings of justice reform, for example, and inform feedback on best practice in prison education (Dunne A and Raby F, 2024).

Background:

North Australia has the highest rates of First Nations incarceration and recidivism in the world. Families and communities are often ‘managed’ in justice settings rather than receiving care and support that would make a difference to their life in the regions. According to the recent ‘Jailing is Failing’ report: ‘The over-use of incarceration in the NT has historically been driven by a politicised approach to justice policy, with both major parties frequently competing to promote a ‘tough on crime’ agenda’ (Justice Reform Initiative, May 2023, p.1). However, programs that promote a model of care within a prison environment that is conducive to healing, connection, and self-actualisation will result in substantial improvements to health and well-being in the community. Furthermore, the value of kindness is often overlooked or prohibited in the prison context, despite the potential for how the teaching and learning of kindness can lead to social and cultural impacts for our Northern communities.

Specific project aims:

1. Define the universal and cultural nuances that translate acts of kindness within different prison settings, and the lessons learned for personal growth and emotional and psychological wellbeing through creative writing and yarning circles.
2. Challenge social stereotypes of incarcerated people to instead promote humanness and the full emotional range of incarcerated people and their needs for healthy wellbeing through the publication of an edited book.
3. Influence policies and approaches which aid in the rehabilitation and reintegration of system impacted women through the publication of a research article.

This project brings together five years’ experience of teaching creative arts to women in prison, and a long history of contributing services to system impacted people upon release from prison. The project also includes a background of publishing creative works by system impacted writers in NT literary journal ‘Borderlands Magazine’ and the special NT edition of ‘Westerly’ magazine. A strong research history predates this project in respective communities to inform this interdisciplinary study in criminology, justice studies, creative writing and literary studies. When these disciplines intersect the aim is to amplify marginalised voices through creative research and share unique insights into the human condition for the purpose of recommendations for justice reform.

Methodology, connection to Roderick themes, and plan of work:

This project uses the Story Capture method. Drawing on unstructured interview strategies, the aim of story capture is to consider the voices of real people and use their stories to make an impact. The research is open to what the interviewees want to say about kindness in the prison and its relationship to justice reform.

The researchers will interview approximately 20-30 system impacted women during the creative writing workshops across Darwin, Townsville and Cairns (10 participants in each location). The interviewees will be women who have lived experience of incarceration or who have been directly impacted by family members with experience of incarceration. The researchers will have some prompt discussion points related to the aim of the study:

• What’s been your experience with incarceration?
• Are there moments when you felt appreciated, seen or heard in prison?
• Do you have any stories about kindness in the prison?
• What impact did kindness have on you at the time or thereafter?
• What is your perspective on punishment in prison?
• What impact did punishment have on you at the time or thereafter?
• How could kindness be better understood and celebrated in the prison?
• How could kindness be better understood and celebrated outside of the prison?

Interviews will be recorded (with permission) and transcribed. Interviewees will be invited to review the transcript of their interview and can correct or withdraw any comments they wish to. Then the qualitative data will be analysed, and themes identified. We will be particularly attentive to ensure no individual or institution can be identified from this data. We will give back the outcomes of the study to participants by sharing access to a published scholarly article and a free copy of the edited creative book.

Hence, two publications will be developed, one creative work that shares the women’s stories of kindness with the world, and one scholarly publication that analyses the qualitative data considering theoretical research in criminology, sociology and psychology to measure human metrics of kindness on wellbeing rather than the more conventional approach to recidivism.

Researchers:

Associate Professor Glenn Dawes, James Cook University,Dr Adelle Sefton-Rowston, Charles Darwin University Yvette Holt, Chair First Nations Australia Writers Network, is assisting the project as a First Nations advisor, creative writing practitioner and editor