justicematters

The project began as a collaboration Margaret Burns, a teacher at the Dawn De Loas Correctional Centre in Sydney, and Kate Pinnock, the producer and presenter of the weekly "Jailbreak" radio show on 2 SER. Kate ran a series of workshops for a small group of volunteer inmates. After creating edited content for "Jailbreak" the group was keen to further develop the skills they had acquired so Margare...

This episode features recordings from the Compulsory Drug Treatment Correctional Centre at Parklea, near Sydney. The Red Room Company delivered their highly successful "Unlocked" prison poetry programme over a period of three full days. The outcomes included a print anthology, a CD of audio recordings (spoken word and two hip hop tracks), and a presentation to the weekly community meeting attended...

The Justice Reform Initiative is an alliance of people who share long-standing professional experience, lived experience and/or expert knowledge of the justice system. In this episode we hear from two representatives of this campaigning group. They believe jailing is failing and that there is an urgent need to reduce the number of people in Australian prisons.  We also share some remarkable musica...

This episode features the music tracks that were created in workshops run by Indigenous hip hop outfit Last Kinection at John Moroney Correctional Centre, west of Sydney. Working with Indigenous prisoners musicians Joel Wenitog, Simone Stacey and DJ Jay Tee wrote and recorded three tracks which were performed at a community concert which was the culmination of the workshops. Music video clips were...

This episode documents a music talent competition organised by music teacher Heiko Altman in a western Sydney jail. Some remarkable talent was uncovered and the proceedings were filmed for an internal jail TV project. The best performers were given the opportunity to record in a fully equipped music studio. The quality of the music produced is a testament to thebeneficila effects of such programs...

In this episode we revisit the Poetry Club at Dillwynia Women's prison near Sydney. On this occasion the invited poet was Mark Mahemoff, whose new collection "Trojan Gifts" will be published shortly. Preparations for the session ( preliminary reading, research, writing a letter of invitation to the poet etc.) were incorporated as assessment tasks into accredited TAFE courses in work readiness and...

This episode features poet Fiona Wright as an invited guest of the Dillwynia Poetry Club, a group set up by women prisoners to read, write and review poetry. The recording of the session was part of an experimental program to develop audiovisual resouces for an in house TV channel at the prison.

This episode features music created and recorded at the Compulsory Drug Treatment Correctional Centre at Parklea. The therapeutic system overseen by the Drug Court is explained. The music was created  within a framework of TAFE accredited music and digital media courses, and demonstrates the ways in which creative education can play a role in rehabilitation.

In this episode we meet Joel Rapaport, hip hop artist and manager of recording stable Big Village. We discuss his experience teaching music production courses in the prison system, and hear some of the recordings made by prisoners in his practical song writing and recording sessions.

With NAIDOC week approaching we are revisiting Red Room Poetry's  Unlocked poetry and music workshops at Balund-a. This time we feature recordings from the NAIDOC week workshops and community celebration  in 2017. Balund-a is a diversionary program for young indigenous offenders situated on a beautiful working cattle property near Tabulam in northern NSW. Apart from regular indigenous mentors and...

This episode emphasises the role of Elders in mentoring young indigenous offenders on the diversionary program at Balund-a. Uncle Lewis Walker has been a regular collaborator in the annual Red Room Unlocked poetry and music workshops. In this episode we join the participants reading their work in English, with Lewis providing line by line translation into Bundjalung.

Balund-a is a residential diversionary program for young indigenous offenders, located on a working rural property on the Clarence River, near Tabulam, in northern NSW. In addition to drug and alcohol recovery programs, Balund-a offers participants vocational training, numeracy and literacy courses, and a cultural reconnection program overseen by on site indigenous Elders. For several years now th...

In this initial episode indigenous ex prisoner Keenan Mundine talks about his experiences in juvenile detention and adult prisons in NSW. We also discuss his work as an advocate for young people caught up in the justice system, and his involvement with campaigning for prison reform.