Across the world, performing arts programmes are increasing in number, scope and professionalism. They attract increasing academic and media attention. Theoretical and applied research, organizational evaluation reports, documentary films and journalism are detailing prison arts and creating recognition that this body of work is becoming a valued part of the correctional enterprise. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests music, theatre, poetry and dance can contribute to prisoner wellbeing, management, rehabilitation and reintegration. Performing Arts in Prisons: Creative Perspectives explores prison arts in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Chile, and creates a new framework for understanding its practices.
Michael Balfour is chair of the Centre for the Arts in Development Communication at Griffith University, Australia.
Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet FAHA is the deputy director (research) at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. Over the past twenty years, her work has examined how participation in communal music-making can open up pathways for greater social justice, equity, inclusion and well-being, especially in communities where entrenched social disadvantage, displacement and division exist. She has been awarded seven major national competitive grants, ten funded consultancies with leading arts, social and health sector organizations and five prestigious fellowships for music research in First Nations’ communities, prisons, war-affected cities, remote regions, health, educational and industry contexts. She was the ARC future fellow and leader of the Creative Change Project. She is currently the president of the Social Impact of Music Making international research platform (Belgium) and associate editor of the International Journal of Community Music.
Contact: Creative Arts Research Institute, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, 140 Grey St, South Brisbane, QLD 4101, Australia.
Linda Davey is a psychologist, theatre maker, arts educator, and academic. She was Research Fellow with the Captive Audiences project, based at Griffith University. Linda has worked as a senior psychologist in prisons and as a researcher with numerous publications in the area of offender rehabilitation.
Associate Professor John Rynne has extensive theoretical and applied knowledge of Australian and international criminal justice systems. His academic qualifications are in psychology and prison reform. From 1998 to 2002, as a Research Fellow at the Crime Research Centre of the University of Western Australia, he studied the impact of private prisons on the Australian custodial system with particular reference to Queensland.
Huib Schippers has a long and diverse history of research into music education, community music, artistic practice, arts policy, and the music industry. After establishing the World Music and Dance Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, he was the Founding Director of the innovative Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia (2003-2015).
