What can Ruby do with a camera? Ex-prisoners use Photovoice to reverse the rules of surveillance

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Photovoice participatory research critical social work women exprisoners human rights anti-oppressive social work

‘Photographs are the eyes with a memory’. (Szto et al., 2005: 141)

Creating photographs can be a safe way to speak, making the once unseen visible by re-enacting memories (Spence, 1995). Photography can be a process of [self] discovery, used to express experiences ‘honestly and accurately’ (Szto et al., 2005: 138). Images add power and strength to words and when used in qualitative research have the potential to initiate social change.

Technological advances mean that anyone with a mobile phone can produce and share quality photographs. However, these advances have created a society that is under increasing surveillance (Yamagata, 2014). Surveillance becomes central in the lives of people who come into contact with the criminal justice system. While incarcerated, prisoners’ lives are closely surveilled. Post-release, electronic tracking technology and parole conditions monitor the movement and behaviour of ex-prisoners, sometimes for years.

This project sees a flip of the usual conventions of surveillance by empowering ex-prisoners to create and discuss images that represent their experiences. This paper provides an example of how one participant, ‘Ruby’ (a pseudonym), used Photovoice (Wang and Burris, 1997) to critically reflect upon her involvement in the criminal justice system, producing a rich yet measured account of her lived experience. Ruby’s work has been integral in shaping my understanding of ex-prisoners’ experiences; therefore, I present it as a case for using Photovoice, especially when researching ‘on the margins’ (Brown and Strega, 2005).

I begin by providing an overview of incarceration in Australia, focusing on the experiences of women. I follow with a summary of the literature on critical and anti-oppressive social work research and how that aligns with employing Photovoice as a research tool. Next, I present a snapshot of Ruby’s data, concluding with an analysis and implications for social work.

Imprisonment in Australia

By 2014, Australia’s prison population had risen to almost 34,000 – 2591 are women (ABS, 2014). Three quarters of Australian prisoners are aged between 20 and 44 years (ABS, 2013). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are imprisoned at a rate of 14 times higher than for non-indigenous Australians (ABS, 2014). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women make up less than 3% of Australia’s population, yet they represent 30% of the women’s prison population (Sudbury, 2014: xxi). South Australia’s female prison population has increased by over 140% over the last two decades (Corrections, 2014: 7). The one privately managed prison in [regional] South Australia is set for its second expansion in two years to meet increasing numbers of prisoners (Hill, 2014). The financial cost of imprisonment continues to rise – Australia spends approximately $3.2 billion annually on adult imprisonment (Australian Red Cross, 2013).

The majority of Australia’s prison population come from low socio-economic communities, have limited formal education and fragile ties to the workforce, making certain race or class membership a continuing influence upon the likelihood of policing and incarceration (Sudbury, 2014). Addiction and poverty are significant influences on increasing incarceration rates (Mauer and Chesney-Lind, 2002). While correctional authorities ‘focus on catching and imprisoning the disorganised ones’ (Kilroy and Pate, 2010: 328), organised, corporate crime is often undetected or unpunished (Soos, 2014).

Women are more likely than men to be remanded in custody (Seeds of Affinity, 2014), and if they are mentally unwell, are more likely to be imprisoned than get access to a mental health treatment facility (Kilroy and Pate, 2010). Once incarcerated, women are likely to be classified as high risk, due to systemic discrimination (Stubbs, 2013: 261), and conversely, for those classified as low risk, access to minimum security facilities is limited (Kilroy and Pate, 2010: 331).

Around 80% of prisoners – women and men – are parents; however, the majority of women prisoners were the head of a sole parent household prior to entering prison. For dependent children, having their mother in prison increases the prospect that they will be placed in formal or informal care, which can create a raft of debilitating consequences for children’s health and well-being (Sheehan and Levine, 2006). Children of women prisoners especially, suffer the effects of parental imprisonment, prior to, during and post-incarceration: damaging effects that attract minimal recognition or social support (Sheehan and Levine, 2006). Mothers who lose custody of their children suffer disenfranchised loss and grief (Doka, 1989), which when unresolved can play a fundamental role in recidivism (Leach et al., 2008).

Release

People often assume that time served in prison is what is needed to stop ‘offending behaviour’, as there is little awareness of the limited opportunities for rehabilitation in the correctional system. However, having a criminal record and limited formal skills can make finding post-release employment near impossible. Ex-prisoners invariably struggle with re-entry into the community (Maruna, 2001) – within five years, over half are re-incarcerated (Baldry, 2010). The pains of incarceration continue, long after women’s release (Mauer and Chesney-Lind, 2002). Even short custodial sentences can mean the loss of children, housing, jobs, pets and possessions, placing already strained relationships at risk (Kilroy and Pate, 2010). Socially constructed gender stereotypes lead criminalised women to be judged harshly, with little regard for their strengths and capabilities (Faith, 2011).

Post-release, many women feel isolated and grieve for the friends they made and left behind (Seeds of Affinity, 2014). Often, they have no choice but to return to abusive environments and crippling poverty. Unresolved addictions and isolation, combined with the aftermath of the prison experience, create a high risk of overdose – intentional or not – in the first weeks and months after leaving prison (Carlton and Segrave, 2011). Unsuccessful attempts at reintegration are usually blamed on individuals rather than recorded as an institutional failure. Women who successfully stay out of prison have done so in spite of adversity, surveillance, poverty and stigma. As I will explain, the comparatively low numbers of women involved in the criminal justice system leave their unique needs minimised or ignored in the development of policies and procedures, which focus on assumptions surrounding individual deficits, compounding negative outcomes.

Critical, anti-oppressive social work research

‘… some researchers position themselves self-consciously, as participatory activists. Their work seeks to unearth, disrupt, and transform existing institutional arrangements’ (Fine, 1992: 211).

Building on the idea that knowledge is socially constructed, critical theory has its roots in feminist and Marxist philosophy (Potts and Brown, 2005: 259) and foregrounds the concept that structural inequality drives oppression, while aiming to challenge traditional power relations. Critical social work is committed to challenging operations of power within social structures, where the personal is political and can be exercised across all modes of social work (Campbell and Baikie, 2012). Critical social work researchers use their exploration to contest dominant understandings and comment on positivist views while valuing the possibility of social change (Fook, 2003). As Campbell and Baikie (2012) explain, critical social work is not just about understanding or explaining but is about ‘critiquing and transforming the profession of social work and the unjust nature of society’ (p. 70).

Once on the margins of research methodologies, feminist and participatory research methods have gained a foothold in the social sciences. Brown and Strega (2005: 11) argue that ‘traditional social science research … has silenced and distorted the experiences of those on the margins, taking a deficit-informed approach to explaining their lives and experiences’. Criminalised women are on the margins of society, treated as ‘other’, and researched ‘on’ to define and examine their deficiencies. Such research uses a ‘scientific’ framework, free of values, passion and ideology. Critical, anti-oppressive research, however, foregrounds the political practices of creating knowledge to generate social change in partnership with people (Potts and Brown, 2005: 255), is built upon foundations of values, passion and ideology while challenging assumptions of what constitutes ‘other’.

Anti-oppressive research from a critical perspective aims to disturb and interrupt dominant discourse. Critical, anti-oppressive research is neither tidy nor linear, often taking researchers down unexpected lines of enquiry. It recognises that knowledge is socially constructed and positions research power closely to people with lived experience (Potts and Brown, 2005). By rejecting dominant traditions of research, anti-oppressive research can hear once silenced voices (Strier, 2007). Anti-oppressive research privileges egalitarian power relations between researchers and participants and recognises that knowledge is the property of the oppressed (Strier, 2007: 860–862). Thus, anti-oppressive research enables participants to ‘determine and interpret myths and truths’ of their representation (Campbell and Baikie, 2012: 72).

Why Photovoice?

The myths underpinning dominant understandings of criminalised women are pervasive. Common myths are that they are violent, dangerous, unreliable, bad mothers with little respect for others; that they deserve their fair sentences, and that prisons provide opportunities for rehabilitation (Seeds of Affinity, 2014: 30–31). In reality, many women are imprisoned for minor or non-violent offences. Conversely, many violent crimes committed by women have been in an attempt to defend their children and themselves from men’s violence (Kilroy and Pate, 2010: 329). The cultural expectations of the ‘good woman’ dominates the discourse around criminalised women, disregarding their agency and attempts at resistance (Faith, 2011), simultaneously ignoring structural oppression.

Photovoice is capable of ‘empower[ing] resistance’ (Brown and Strega, 2005: 10) enabling participants to challenge dominant understandings of their lives. Wang and Burris (1997) developed and refined the Photovoice method in their research with women in rural China. Based upon documentary photography and visual anthropology methods (see Banks, 2001), the defining feature of Photovoice is that participants produce and analyse their own data. Photovoice is underpinned by a collective commitment to investigate a problem, by engaging in self and collective reflection and desire to engage in individual or collective action, leading to a solution that is of benefit to the people involved (McIntyre, 2002: 391).

Photovoice fits within an anti-oppressive and critical social work research framework by challenging the established politics of representation. Influenced by feminist theory and Freire’s (1970) notion of critical consciousness raising, Photovoice can harness knowledge while creating community action by using visual expression to develop the social conscious (Booth and Booth, 2003). Grounded in lived experience, Photovoice empowers participants – participants who often attract stigma and contempt – to produce a body of knowledge outside of traditional ‘scientific’ means of data collection. Because participants generate and analyse their own data, Photovoice can develop new ways of understanding the context of social problems within a wider structural framework.

Of explicit relevance for this project, Photovoice challenges the politics of representation, providing ex-prisoners a means to surveil operations of power, validate their shared experience while seeking policy, rather than individual change.

Insiders and outsiders

‘Experience is not a second rate form of knowledge: the examination of personal experience can be a crucial step in developing theoretical and empirical material’ (Carter et al. (2002: 112).

The criminal justice system presides over judgement and punishment for criminal offences. As social workers, that is not our role, instead it is to ‘respect the inherent dignity, worth and autonomy of every person’ while ‘respecting the human rights of individuals and groups’ (AASW, 2010: 12). With the Code of Ethics close to my heart, the aim of this research project is to empower ex-prisoners, providing them with an opportunity to use their lived experience to challenge the myths and dominant understandings surrounding them. Participating provides a means to reflect on the barriers to staying out of prison, while voicing strengths, hopes and dreams.

I have drawn upon insider knowledge (see Hampton, 1993; Newbold et al., 2014; Olsson, 2005) to enhance my outsider understanding of life after incarceration. The combination of insider knowledge and outsider engagement can strengthen the research process, as outsiders can ‘ask naïve questions’ and bring ‘critical perspectives about what could be’ (Fine and Torre, 2004: 22). Although I am an outsider, I had learned from my work with prisoners and ex-prisoners that they attracted stigma and the resulting oppression, long after prison sentences were complete. I knew that their families and community also suffered their pains of imprisonment. I recognised that outsiders can be quick to condemn criminalised identities while ignoring structural oppression and ex-prisoners’ personal strengths. I also understood how challenging oppression and seeking social justice are core commitments of the social work profession (AASW, 2010: 7).

Texts foregrounding the importance of socially just research (Fraser, 2009) which challenge dominant ideas (Brown and Strega, 2005) have influenced my approach to social work research. From these texts, I learned the value of researching with oppressed groups. Feminism is integral to ‘who I am’, consequently feminist research methods that focus on gender as socially constructed, and unpack understandings of power (Seymour, 2012) are without question, central to the design, aims and spirit of this project. Above all else, feminism for me is an attitude, (Krumer-Nevo, 2009: 280) present in my work, research and everyday life.

Method

Gaining ethics approval for research with people who are considered at risk, vulnerable or political can be challenging. By default, the participants in this project met these criteria. The relatively small prison population in South Australia meant that participants may easily be identified; therefore, special consideration was given as to what demographic information would be sought and recorded; as such, there will be no discussion of specific crimes in my written work. While I did not directly ask participants about the circumstances surrounding their incarceration, most chose to talk about it. Special consideration was given to the possible ethical concerns that might arise for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people due to their cultural representation in images created by colonisers (Perkins and Jones, 2008). Ethical approval was granted in 2013 (#6255).

Limited funding and limited access to participants meant that I needed to make modifications to Wang and Burris’s original Photovoice procedure (1997). Despite the practical difficulties, I was encouraged by others who have modified Photovoice (Castleden and Garvin, 2008). Prior to heading out into the field, Photovoice projects usually begin with one or more group sessions where participants and research assistants decide upon the parameters of the project. Next, professional photographers teach the technical aspects of photo composition and reiterate ethical concerns of taking photographs in public. Rather than being purely practical, these sessions are central to the participatory and critical consciousness raising elements of Photovoice, enabling rapport and trust to build between group members and researcher/s (Wang and Burris, 1997).

As this is a doctoral project, the costs to provide a professional photographer and research assistance were prohibitive, besides, I was certain that participants would find creative ways of representation with minimal instruction. Group work with ex-prisoners can provide practical and ethical challenges so I undertook this aspect in a one-on-one setting. Further recruitment for the project has been sporadic, making the logistics of forming a group near impossible. Ruby completed her photographs in June 2014, while the last participant did not complete her work until February 2015. Recruitment was purposive in that workers at a small NGO proposed some participants, (six of their service users completed each step). Later, a worker in the sector and five members of an ex-prisoner community group I approached self-selected to participate. Nine women and three men have completed each step of the research.

Written information about the project was provided a week before the first meeting to allow a thorough reading and informed consent. I felt it was important to not under-estimate participants’ knowledge and time commitment to fully participate in the project, as effectively participants were researchers with access to realms I did not. Accordingly, research funding covered the cost of providing a small honorarium at each of the three steps (3 × $40 AU).

As a feminist researcher, it was important to position myself as an ally. I’m from a working-class neighbourhood, was a high school dropout and had been a factory worker for over 20 years prior to my entry to university. Post-graduation, I worked at an NGO that supported people prior, during and post-incarceration. That work meant that I had been inside correctional facilities for men and women, and program funding meant that I could support people impacted by the imprisonment of a family member. I understood that people with stigmatised identities have been classified and labelled routinely by ‘professionals’ and can distrust researchers from academia (Newbold et al., 2014), even those who purport to have a social justice agenda (Duvnjak and Fraser, 2013: 176). I believed it was important to ensure participants that labelling and pathologising were not my intentions, that I value the importance of an egalitarian approach to research (Fraser, 2009) and that my own ‘class consciousness’, guides my exploration.

I then asked the participants what they wanted to say about themselves. It was important for participants to be able to provide the context of their experience (as I had) so that I could better understand them as they understood themselves. Participants recounted stories spanning their childhood, till the current time, recalling significant relationships, events or turning points. Without prompting, most spoke of the type of crime they committed and events that occurred before, during and after their incarceration. All participants identified something or someone who had been integral in their re-entry goals. Many described how their prison experience had made them more accepting of ‘difference’.

Participants were shown examples of other Photovoice projects to demonstrate how their data would be used. Participants were given a handbook of basic instructions I designed for the project, using ideas drawn from a variety of sources (see, Banks, 2001; Spence and Solomon, 1995). The handbook was not piloted prior to the research as it was never meant to be a set of instructions, rather it included ideas for photo composition, suggestions to keep identities confidential and reiterated the importance of ethical practices when using cameras. Participants were posed with the research question ‘given what you have just told me, if you had 15 minutes with a policy maker or politician, what would you want them to know about your experiences?’ and were told that the only limit was their imagination. I felt that this kept the project within the spirit of participatory action research (Krumer-Nevo, 2009). I took brief notes, later typing them up as de-identified field notes. Usually, Photovoice projects will have another group session after the films are developed to analyse the data. Instead, I met with participants individually to discuss the images they produced. I used an iterative approach, discussing previous participant’s de-identified ideas with subsequent participants. These interviews were recorded and later transcribed, verbatim.

A guiding rationale in the development of Photovoice was that having access to a camera would empower participants (Wang and Burris, 1997). Nearly 20 years later, this is not the case. Even basic mobile phones have a camera function. Rather than utilizing this possible resource, I decided to use disposable cameras, costing less than $10 AU. This meant that participants could collect data on an equal footing, having access to exactly the same equipment. Upon reflection, I am embarrassed that I had asked participants to do their best using such an inexpensive and dated product, which gave them little chance to make mistakes – a situation not far removed from their post-release experience. I am not sure if the participants saw the similarities, but I can (now). If I had another opportunity to conduct a Photovoice project, I would seek funding for better quality equipment.

Despite the limitations of my inexperience and dated technology, the participants have produced some impressive work, going to extraordinary lengths to create their photographs. Many used humour, metaphor and analogy in their images and narratives. Most used props, two accompanied their photographs with poetry, some took photographs of existing photographs, artwork, or newspaper clippings, while others involved family members or pets. Some chose not to use the cameras provided, instead using their mobile phone and creating and/or modifying their images digitally. Despite this being a project about post-release experiences, seven participants submitted a photograph that demonstrated why they went to prison, and every participant submitted at least one image that represented in-prison experiences. Ruby produced 21 photographs, 7 depicting in-prison experiences. I didn’t quite understand why at first, but as each participant did so, it began to make sense. I learned that release does not always mean ‘freedom’ and how even a short custodial sentence can change people forever. This understanding was later confirmed when speaking with visitors to the first exhibition, where many commented that the display helped them better understand their friend or family member since their release.

Ruby

Ruby is a working class Anglo-Australian, in her 40s and had been out of prison on home detention for a year when we met. Prior to her 18 months in prison, she was employed as an office clerk. At the time of her criminal activity, she had been struggling with depression after the breakdown of her relationship and was gambling as a means of ‘escape’. Commenting on her participation in the project, Ruby said that, ‘it was a little overwhelming at first, but once I sat down and wrote a list to decide what I want to say, I got a little bit creative’ …

Ruby: This is what led me to jail (Figure 1), something legal that started off as a bit of fun, but spiralled out of control.

Figure 1.

What started it all .

Ruby: There are three different types of red flowers here (Figure 2) and while they all look the same, they all need different care. Different amounts of water, different fertiliser, different sunshine. If they don’t do well in one spot, mum moves them around till she finds a spot where they thrive. So this represents that while people in prison may look the same, they shouldn’t be treated exactly the same.

Figure 2.

The flowers.

Michele: That has a huge amount of meaning for women prisoners.

Ruby: Yes, you are lumped into the same prison as violent people. I mean I don’t think I am any better than them [the violent people] … some of them are lovely people, but I just don’t associate with violent people on the outside.

Michele: Do you think you are a low risk then?

Ruby: I am such a low risk. You see so many fights in jail, it’s so scary. I wouldn’t even know how to hit someone … when there was a fight, I wanted to run the other way.

Michele: Do you think this affects your post-release experiences?

Ruby: Yes absolutely, I am just seen as ex-prisoner, not a non-violent, ex-prisoner who caused no trouble.

Ruby: There is no dignity in jail (Figure 3). They call you by your last name … they strip search you at the drop of a hat. When you provide a urine sample, you have to do in a full strip, get re-dressed then you have to pee in full view of a prison officer, balanced over a tray in the toilet.

Figure 3.

Loss of dignity.

Ruby: I called this picture (Figure 4) Don’t get sick in jail, because Panadol [paracetamol] is the cure all in jail. If you’ve got toothache, Panadol, if you’re dying from cancer, Panadol. You have to request a nurse just to get a couple of Panadol tablets … I was lucky in that I was prescribed a daily dose of anti-inflammatory medication for an old injury. Sometimes I didn’t need it, so I would share it with women who did. If you got sick, you have to put a request in for the doctor, that could take a day, then the triage nurse gets to decide if you are sick enough to see the doctor. That could be four days down the track.

Figure 4.

Don’t get sick in jail.

Michele: You could be better by then.

Ruby: Or you could be dead [laughs] … Once, a girl fell through a rotting floor and badly hurt her ankle … she couldn’t walk … the nurses gave her Panadol, saying ‘it will be alright’ … it took other prisoners to argue that it should be checked by a doctor … it was a torn ligament. They should have things like that checked straight away, it’s a duty of care.

Ruby described other examples of poor in-prison health care during our discussion. After having a fall when no medical staff were present, Ruby was taken to the men’s prison next door for treatment, where she described having to use the toilet in full view of male prisoners and staff, while she was menstruating. There were no feminine hygiene products on hand, instead, Ruby was offered a pair of ‘old man’s pants’ as an alternative. Fortunately, a female prison officer was able to provide her with some of her own personal feminine hygiene products.

Ruby: The medical system in prison is an absolute joke. There are people who need appointments with specialists, well somehow their appointments get forgotten. There’s people in there who’ve got cancer, they need to see their specialist, but the people who keep the diary somehow forget. It’s frustrating [sighs]. Panadol is the cure all and thankfully, I didn’t get sick.

Ruby: This pile of books represents boredom (Figure 5). All you can do in prison is read. Jail is the most boring place I have ever been. The education on offer is very basic and only for 3 hours, 3 days per week, there is nothing to do.

Figure 5.

Boredom.

Michele: What would you have wanted to do?

Ruby: Courses, training or more study, think outside the box, teach us something useful for on the outside.

Michele: What do you think about prison as a site of rehabilitation?

Ruby: There is no rehabilitation in prison.

Through her post-release employment, Ruby accessed training to gain a forklift licence (Figure 6). Employed by a family friend, Ruby spoke with pride about her job, saying that the benefits it provided were more than monetary. She described her frustration at the limited choices available for imprisoned women.

Figure 6.

Work.

Michele: what sort of training could you get in prison?

Ruby: My choices were working in textiles, or education, that was all that was on offer. I didn’t need education, but I chose it so I could have access to a computer to write letters to my family.

Ruby took this photograph (Figure 7) on her mobile phone and used computer software to blur hers and her daughter’s face.

Figure 7.

Being a mum.

Ruby: This is all I’ve got left of my daughter after going to jail, just some cards, photos and letters. Had I not gone to jail I would still have that relationship.

Michele: Did the relationship break down before you went to prison?

Ruby: I told her 6 months before I went to jail that it was a possibility. She hid her emotions from me a lot during that time, but we still were together.

Michele: Was it that you were in prison then?

Ruby: Her father has a lot to do with it … she lives with him now … she hears his side without hearing how much I love her. We have started writing letters, but I don’t want to push it, I’ll wait til she’s ready.

Ruby: This picture of a sign represents the different directions I can choose to take now that I am out of prison (Figure 8). I’m not sure where, but as far as I can tell they are going to be good directions with goals. I’m so glad to have a job … my crime meant that I wasn’t going to get a job easily. It [the job] gives me a lot of confidence … stealing money is now not what I do. So when I meet someone and they say, ‘what do you do?’, I can tell them.

Figure 8.

Directions.

Ruby: This represents the beginning of my new life (Figure 9). I regret what I did and I am glad I got caught. It would be hard to trust me, but give me a chance, I will earn that trust … I have to allow people to learn to trust me.

Figure 9.

New beginnings.

Discussion

Ruby has provided a counter story to common assumptions about criminalised women. They are not all violent, they don’t want to waste their time in prison, they want – and need – opportunities to gain employment once they are released, and they are deeply affected by the loss of their children.

Ruby was well aware of the injustice that the one-size-fits-all approach of women’s imprisonment creates (Figure 2). While adherence to prison rules saw Ruby eventually move to the least secure area of the prison, economies of scale meant that boredom and meaningless activities made up the majority of her days. Days without purpose can contribute to prison violence where a lack of meaningful activities can be ‘soul destroying, associated with suicide, addiction and aggression’ (Liebling, 2011: 540). Women prisoners in South Australia have limited opportunities for work and training, far fewer than their male counterparts (Corrections, 2015). Would it not be preferable that the photograph of the pile of books represented access to quality education rather than boredom in prison?

Ruby questioned the undignified treatment of prisoners. Ruby was not a drug user, nor had she committed a violent crime, yet she was strip searched ‘at the drop of a hat’. Advocates have argued that random strip-searching procedures mean there is no ‘specific reasonable suspicion of the person being searched’ (Sisters Inside, 2004: 8). While the United Nations state that prisoners be ‘treated with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings’ (United Nations, 1990), security measures like strip searching often go unquestioned publicly due to the assumption that all people in prison are inherently violent and deserve punishment. However, as Hicks (2011) argues, ‘treating people badly because they have done something wrong only perpetuates the cycle of indignity’ and that in doing so ‘we violate our own dignity in the process’ (p. 5).

Women with poor physical and mental health are over-represented in prisons (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2013), yet prison medical facilities are basic, often trivialising women’s health needs (Faith, 2011: 237). Although prisons cannot replace early holistic health support, prisoners have a right to access ‘health services available in the country, without discrimination due to their legal situation’ (United Nations, 1990). Despite Australia having a universal health care system, Ruby described the struggle to access in-prison health care for immediate and long-term health problems and the solidarity amongst the women attempting to reclaim their rights to access health care. Regardless of differences, Ruby shared her medication, described prisoners uniting to challenge the lack of action over a prisoner’s injury, frustration at the lack of care over a prisoner with cancer and the female prison officer sharing her own sanitary pads. These acts of solidarity are a form of resistance and agency, pushing back against the machinations of the total institution in an effort to reclaim women’s dignity.

In response to criticisms of undignified treatment of prisoners, some have suggested that what constitutes inhumane and degrading treatment for one prisoner may not be the case for another. It is true that some women reoffend to enable their return to prison and that for others, time in prison is safer than ‘freedom’ (Mauer and Chesney-Lind, 2002: 8). However, as Kilroy (2012: 26) argues, prisons are not ‘shelters for battered women, treatment centres for mental health, or an appropriate substitution for adequate and affordable housing, education or skills development’.

Ruby has not struggled with re-entry to the extent that many others do. This can be attributed to her social support. Ruby described the support her family provided, structurally and emotionally throughout her experience. Despite ‘significant challenges’ (Mauer and Chesney-Lind, 2002: 3), Ruby’s mother visited her in prison every weekend, keeping hope and connection to the outside alive. Ruby’s family have provided the stable accommodation necessary to meet home detention requirements and helped her find employment. During her imprisonment, Ruby accessed one of the few in-prison services provided by an NGO and has continued to receive post-release support since. However, despite extensive support Ruby has lost something most important to her, the relationship with her daughter. Again, remaining connected to her parents, who have contact with their granddaughter, makes regaining their relationship a possibility.

Implications for social work

Torn out of their familiar settings and in the absence of institutional support, when women are placed in an environment without recognition of their individual needs, their human rights are jeopardised. Their solidarity, despite difference, is a means for them to stake a claim for their rights. These are strengths to take into account when we work with ex-prisoners. We must appreciate that the immediate situation in prisons are very powerful and provide reason for ‘choices’ that we as ‘outsiders’ may not fully understand.

There is a crucial need for gender responsive policies and approaches to sentencing and incarceration by correctional policy makers. Women have a right to equal access to prison work programs that are meaningful and do not keep them a member of the working poor post-release. Addressing the human cost of imprisonment by diverting some of the funds spent on imprisoning adults in Australia to fund educational opportunities that do not conform to the ‘low expectations’ of class, gender and criminalisation (Faith, 2011: 275–324) is paramount if we are serious about creating an equitable society. Education can liberate and empower, initiating change capable of traversing prison walls, creating hope-filled communities, while reducing recidivism (Faith, 2011; Torre and Fine, 2005). Supporting prisoners to create a non-criminal identity should be the goal of correctional policies, rather than stripping prisoners bare of their rights and dignity. Although prisons compromise rights and are reluctant to provide dignified spaces, we must acknowledge that people who are imprisoned have rights and are entitled to have them upheld. Indeed, the preservation of human rights is central to critical social work practice (Ife, 2012).

Women cannot just ‘flick a switch’ and return to their before-prison lives, as they have built deep connections – despite differences – to the women left behind, who together attempt to retain their dignity, making their prison lives more tolerable. Gender neutral post-release services that focus on changing individuals without changing ‘systems’, minimise women’s unique experiences and circumstances. Providing a means for pleasant contact with family, especially children, while incarcerated and ensuring that women’s outside networks are well supported can maintain valuable community connections and a stepping stone to re-entry (Friedman, 2014).

We can support women post-release by not seeing them solely through the lens of their crime. Criminalised women are more than the deficiencies and deficits that are recorded when filling out intake and assessment forms. Rather than focussing on deficits, social workers who provide a safe space for criminalised women to name and seek their goals – no matter how ambitious, reclaim dignity and regain autonomy can facilitate transformation. Providing opportunities for women ex-prisoners to give back to others who remain incarcerated may help restore dignity. Restoring dignity can reinstate feelings of community connection instead of the ‘fear, anger, resentment and revenge’ created by undignified spaces (Hicks, 2011: 11).

Finally, prisons have become the default response to addiction, poverty and poor mental health (Kilroy, 2012) damaging communities along the way. Nothing but a sustained, society-wide challenge to dealing with intersecting oppression that goes beyond blaming individuals will prevent that. Challenging oppression is vital for critical social work and should continually guide our practice.

Conclusion

This paper demonstrates the possibilities of using Photovoice in providing rich and detailed renderings of complex social issues. Ruby’s data humanises the increasing women’s prison population, profoundly developing my understanding of the deep connections formed by women in prison. Despite her ‘difference’, post-release support and getting her life back on track, Ruby was empowered, using her voice to advocate for the rights of women who remain in prison. Almost everyday, I drive past the sign pictured in Figure 8, which reminds me of Ruby, the strengths and resilience of criminalised women and the power of images, confirming Szto et al.’s (2005: 139–141) observation that using photography in qualitative research can be like ‘writing with light’.

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