Abstract:

Increasingly, it is more economically efficient for universities to manage and move learning and teaching online. In recent decades, eLearning has also been celebrated as a democratizing force for unlocking potential – including potential new markets of students, regardless of their geographic or socio-economic location. Thus far however, incarcerated students have not been well positioned to take advantage of advances in digital processes and technologies. Most incarcerated students in Australia have no direct access to the internet to support their learning and some have no reliable access to a computer at all. In many Australian prisons, access to higher education lags behind vocational education and has become increasingly problematic as universities move online. Moreover, inmates who choose to spend their time in incarceration productively in pursuit of higher education will unfortunately encounter many obstacles and constraints. Circuit-breaking initiatives and digital innovations are underway at the University of Southern Queensland to improve access to higher education for those incarcerated in Australian prisons, and I plan to discuss an Australian case study in this presentation. Education, which must now include digital literacy and technological access, is vital to unlocking the crippling cycles of disadvantage that frequently led to incarceration for Australia’s most vulnerable citizens.

Keywords:

Incarcerated students, internet access, Australian prisons, digital universities.