Historically, research on prisons and prisoners privileges an individualizing framework, when in fact the prison experience is strongly tied to social stratification and collective identities. Informed by the data created for a Photovoice project with former prisoners in South Australia, I contend that contemporary “criminological” knowledge tends to individualize crime through its own privileged view of the world. This individualizing approach seeps into the ways in which criminalized women experience release into the community after a prison sentence, confirming that society does not believe that imprisonment furnishes any form of “rehabilitation.” There can be no separation between capitalism, the prison industrial complex (PIC), and the violence present in carceral settings. This violence, although to a lesser extent than prisoners, is experienced by social workers selling their labor power within the PIC who are co-opted into believing that they can “make a difference.” Yet, social workers, whose codes of ethics are grounded in a framework of human rights, are witness to abuses of human rights on a daily basis within the PIC. Instead of making a difference, they are coerced into silence and roles of social control. The argument proposed here suggests that social workers must radically rethink the place and purpose of prisons by considering them as a violent response by the state to structural social problems that are experienced as politically perpetrated misery and oppression.

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This article provides an account of the possibilities of using Photovoice as a research method that can empower participants by foregrounding the data produced by Ruby (a pseudonym) to highlight women’s unique experiences of imprisonment and release. Designed using an anti-oppressive, critical social work perspective, this project aims to gain a greater understanding of the post-release experiences of ex-prisoners in South Australia. Participants were posed with the research question ‘if you were able to spend 15 minutes with a politician or policy maker, what would you want to tell them about your experiences?’ Through her lens, Ruby returns the gaze of surveillance, commenting on the disempowerment women experience in prison and their attempts at reclaiming their rights and dignity. Ruby’s data discredit some of the pervasive myths surrounding criminalised women, while calling for fair medical treatment and equal opportunities for women to prepare for their release. This article concludes that the solidarity built between women in prison helps them to tolerate undignified spaces and that their freedom is tempered with an enduring concern for those left behind.