By Ashleigh Chapman
Part 5 of Bearing Witness: Firsthand Accounts of Incarceration
Series curated by Dr. Baz Dreisinger
Back to studying after two years in solitary confinement.
How to speak? When to speak? What to say? I know the subject matter, but don’t want to take over the class by asking question after question. I have been wanting to write this now, and I
have the privilege to write this piece, as I can study again. Learn, unlearn and relearn, as I like to say. But where to begin? You need a home to get a good night sleep, and to focus on learning without any distractions. A shower to be clean and tidy, to be part of a group environment and to feel “normal.” You need clothes that are acceptable to attend class. I could go on and on with a list of things a human being needs to study, even more so after being incarcerated.
But what I will say is, wow, it is hard. I love learning, I love classroom environments—I thrive in these environments. Although the education system inside prison and outside prison are similar, the struggle to reintegrate into the classroom in the community has been hard.
It is rewarding to be with amazing teachers and students eager to learn, and the support is incredible. Education and Corrections, on the other hand, often do not communicate or even coexist with each other; incarcerated students can be unaware of what they can and cannot study and are often confused as to why they cannot access higher education or more course
material and qualifications. Only one TAFE (Technical and Further Education) is available at the maximum-security women’s prison I was in, and it offers just individual units, not the full qualification. So, education is another let-down provided by corrections. This must change and be more in line with education in the community. Victoria is known as the education state, with multiple options for TAFE and
universities, as well as primary and secondary schools for every culture and every need—but this does not apply to prisons. In the community, education after solitary confinement has been difficult. I have to travel far to get to campus, navigating public transport. In class it is hard to know when to speak, when to shut up and if the question I ask is stupid; understanding “regular people conversations” is not
easy. After two years of only communicating with those in solitary confinement with me, or officers and corrections staff or the three people at visit time, I noticed my attention span was low. Being disruptive in class has thus become an issue. Don’t get me wrong; I have always been annoying—but never in a class. I feel out of depth, but I am partly to blame. I thought it was a great idea to go head-first straight into education, studying for a diploma in justice and a Bachelor of Legal Studies at once, while also getting my forklift license and partaking in numerous advocacy trainings. Silly, to try to get ahead, or even gain employment after prison?
Education is one piece of the puzzle and is paramount to successful transition into the community—but in small steps, individual units, even, one course at a time. I have received an International Women’s Day Award and scholarship for my dedication to my studies and for living up to the aspired values of Holmesglen. I have gained numerous contacts that have led me to advocate successfully for those who are incarcerated and recently released. But there is so much more to do. What can we do to fix education inside prisons? How can we outside help those inside? If you have the answers, let’s fix this. Let’s give incarcerated students the same opportunities as us out here in the educational state we call Victoria.
About the Series:
Bearing Witness: Firsthand Accounts of Incarceration, is intended to highlight first-person accounts of those who have experienced incarceration. It is curated by Dr. Baz Dreisinger, Founder and Executive Director of Incarceration Nations Network, a global prison reform and justice reimagining organization.
About the Collection:
Lived Places Publishing is proud to partner with Dr. Baz Dreisinger’s organization to bring you a collection that aims to broaden the scope of real people’s storytelling in Carceral Studies.
The most knowledgeable experts on any government’s justice system are the people who have endured it. The Incarceration Nations Network Collection (LPP/INN) delivers the stories of and by people who have experienced prison firsthand and worldwide and are thus living witnesses to the global catastrophe known as mass incarceration.
Recognizing that the act of bearing witness can take many forms this collection seeks academic memoirs, essay collections, poetry collections, and other forms of ethnographic and autoethnographic tellings that expose the intersection of identity and place. Recognizing, too, that mass incarceration is a global phenomenon, the collection welcomes writers from across the globe and seeks to publish in multiple languages through translation rights and emerging tools.
Dr. Baz Dreisinger is Founder and Executive Director of Incarceration Nations Network, a global prison reform and justice reimagining organization. She is also a Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York; author of the critically acclaimed book Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World (published in translation in China, Japan, Taiwan, Italy and in Spanish); founder of John Jay’s groundbreaking Prison-to-College Pipeline program; 2018 Global Fulbright Scholar and current Fulbright Scholar Specialist. Dr. Baz speaks regularly about justice issues on international media and in myriad settings around the world.
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