On what it means to be free: Radio as a tool of desistance for formerly incarcerated women in Adelaide, Australia

Anderson, Heather; Bedford, Charlotte

doi:10.1386/rjao.17.1.7_1

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Prison radio , on the other hand, is located within the prison and broadcast exclusively to its inmates. Prison radio stations address issues relevant specifically to the correctional facility in which they operate and designed to meet inmates’ needs (Anderson & Bedford, 2017a). These stations are common mainly in the United Kingdom (Bedford, 2016, 2018).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radio What's New? Someone Still Loves You: The Impact of Listening to Prison Radio

Einat,

Nagar

2023

The Prison Journal

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This study examines the impact of listening to prison radio on the well-being of inmates. Its main quantitative findings are that listening to the radio had no significant impact on inmates’ anxiety, anger, emotional distress, or self-esteem. The qualitative results found that listening to the radio has a positive impact on inmates’ well-being, their outlook, the atmosphere of the prison, and peer relationships. We conclude that the practice of prison radio reflects sophisticated prison administration, reducing feelings of hostility and anger on the part of the inmates and promoting trust among inmates and between them and the staff.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radio What's New? Someone Still Loves You: The Impact of Listening to Prison Radio

Einat,

Nagar

2023

The Prison Journal

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“…Furthermore, the program has previously been granted access to record at the Adelaide Women's Prison, which provided the opportunity to broadcast incarcerated voices (albeit only those approved by the PIC). A review by the authors published in 2019 found Radio Seeds featured voices of incarcerated women in the majority of its episodes (Anderson and Bedford 2019).…”

Section: Radiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Prisoner radio as an abolitionist tool: A scholactivist reflection

Anderson

Bedford

2021

Journal of Alternative &Amp; Community Media

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Prisoner and prison radio – audio production and broadcasting that services prisoner and prison communities – has existed in a variety of forms in a diverse range of countries for over 30 years and has recently seen a surge in popularity and awareness. At the same time, the prison abolition movement has also gained momentum and visibility, after an equally long presence and history. Recently in the United States, the New York City Council voted to close Rikers Island by 2026 in response to community campaigning driven by an abolition agenda. Likewise, the Black Lives Matter movement has introduced an abolitionist discourse (especially around defunding police services) to the mainstream vernacular. This article considers the relationships between broadcasters/audiences and the State – embodied through government departments responsible for managing the incarceration of its citizens, and how these impact on prisoner radio’s capacity to act as an agent of change. To do so, we take a scholactivist approach to critically reflect on our experiences as prisoner radio practitioners and researchers and consider the potentials for prisoner radio to either support or hinder a prison abolition agenda. Can the genre contribute to the prison abolition movement when it often requires the support of the prison-industrial complex to exist?

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“…Baldry, Carlton, and Cunneen (2015) propose that abolition and reform are not “mutually exclusive strategies” (p. 173); rather, abolition is both a strategy and an end goal. As Anderson and Bedford (2019) suggest, the “traditional rhetoric of reform only serves to strengthen an unworkable and unfair system” (p. 12), going on to argue that abolitionists can use creative “tools of desistance” such as their community radio project, Radio Seeds. Anderson’s radio documentary project shows that the community has much to offer when it comes to imagining what a world without prisons might look like (Anderson & Radio Seeds, 2019).…”

Section: Prison Abolition: a Strategy And An End Goalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radically Rethinking Social Work in the Criminal (in)Justice System in Australia

Jarldorn

2019

Affilia

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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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On what it means to be free: Radio as a tool of desistance for formerly incarcerated women in Adelaide, Australia

Cited by 5 publications

References 18 publications

Radio What's New? Someone Still Loves You: The Impact of Listening to Prison Radio

Radio What's New? Someone Still Loves You: The Impact of Listening to Prison Radio

Prisoner radio as an abolitionist tool: A scholactivist reflection

Radically Rethinking Social Work in the Criminal (in)Justice System in Australia

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