Your Words Made Me Believe I Am Worth Something
By Anonymous
I’ve read a lot of articles in About Time this past year, but your article about embracing the next chapter really meant something to me. Your words were real and meaningful.
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I’ve read a lot of articles in About Time this past year, but your article about embracing the next chapter really meant something to me. Your words were real and meaningful.
Today is my daughter’s 13th birthday and because I’m incarcerated, I wasn’t allowed to call her yesterday.
Each day I wake up in here I’m re-shocked, so to speak…how on Earth has life gotten to this point for me? For a while there I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out and tell me I’d been “Punk’d”.
There is a particular part of our prison populations that seems to have been forgotten, that gets no mention and yet these people who are the ones that need help and support when incarcerated with a unique set of issues that just aren’t recognised.
So the parole referred me to seek out a security classification to be possibly considered for low security.
What’s been happening at your prison at the moment? Our frequency of ‘lock-ins’ is increasing to about 2 per week while staff do training for the handover.
My name is Joeby – earlier this year I wrote about our gym equipment and our access to supplements. Since my return there has been no update or change at the centre.
Helicobacter pylori is an infection of bacteria in the stomach with symptoms ranging from mild to severe heartburn, stomach pains, diarrhoea, gastrointestinal problems, duodenal ulcers, stomach ulcers, and possible gastric-related cancers.
When I’m locked down, I do a lot of crocheting, which I find is really good for my mental health and your loved ones are sure to love it.
I had no money for the June activity buy-up, and just enough to order thermal underwear (bottom/top) and a beanie for the July activity buy-up. Then I was told it wouldn’t arrive till the end of August! Winter will be over!
In June 2025, a new policy was implemented affecting the low classification placement of inmates in Queensland on offences of manslaughter and attempted murder.
A standalone legal service is needed to address the “significant unmet needs” of people in prison, particularly women, trans and gender diverse people, according to a new report.
Australia’s highest court will decide whether a woman in prison in Queensland should be allowed to freeze her eggs while she is incarcerated.
Including suppression orders being banned for some offenders in VIC, good character to be scrapped in sentencing in WA, major changes made to remand processes in NSW and more.
There are many groups around the country that inspect prisons and provide feedback and recommendations to governments. These often involve visiting prisons and talking directly to people in custody.
This is what they’ve been up to in the last month.
I finally finished my VPP (Violence Prevention Program) in late June. It was one of the wisest decisions I ever made.
When I was first transferred to PPP in 2000, I was warned about the dentist colloquially known as ‘The Butcher.’ I attended the dentist for a sore molar.
When I get released at the end of this year, I am faced with a massive uphill climb with barely a rope to save me.

Clearly you only have to nominate ‘time travel’ as the subject of a writing competition to get people thinking.
Even if positive life events have been few and far between for YOU/now, the ingenious design of our transport allows you to revisit them time and again.
If you could travel in time, would you change anything? Or would you simply see for yourself how life has evolved? How far in time would you travel back or forward too?
It was late afternoon when he opened his eyes. The blanket of clouds had broken in several places, and beams of golden light planked the valley floor, illuminating the tops of the ruined buildings.
My record would be clean, I wouldn’t have hurt so many people, done so many burgs, or maybe I wouldn’t be raised by gangsters and by feds, but then who would I be?
I am or “was” a journalist – I was tasked with documenting and reporting advancements in technology. Recently a form of time travel was discovered.
Our time machine doesn’t take the form of a Tardis, or DeLorean, yet it does represent an equally large figure in pop culture and science fiction (at least those forced into hard labour on a mining planet colony usually got a spectacular view of the galaxy around them).
The decay of an atom indicates that time itself has passed, it is the origin of our concept of time.
Have you ever found yourself at the bottom of a well?
Time, for me, was at first just “the clock on the wall” at high school. When is lunch? When will this test finish? And when is home time?
Sleep is one of the most important parts of our physical and psychological health.
I never expected to walk into prison carrying hepatitis C, and I definitely didn’t expect to walk out with a purpose. But that’s how my story goes – messy, painful, and somehow still full of hope.
Welcome to another exciting instalment of Ask Stacey!
If you apply for a job, you might be told to complete a criminal record check. This provides a document summarising any criminal history that can then be given to a potential employer.
If you have been the victim of a crime, you may be able to apply for financial assistance through a government-run victim compensation scheme.
Facing the Numbers is a new film that explores the injustices First Nations people face in Australia’s legal system.
Two First Nations mothers have settled a case against NSW Police that alleged that hundreds of bail checks during the middle of the night on their teenage children amounted to trespass.
Australia’s highest court will decide whether a woman in prison in Queensland should be allowed to freeze her eggs while she is incarcerated.
After decades of campaigning, the state will scrap an offence punishable by up to a year in prison, shifting the response to poverty and homelessness away from policing.
Victoria Police now have the power to secretly access the financial records of anyone as part of investigations of all crimes under a last-minute amendment passed by Parliament quietly last week.
A standalone legal service is needed to address the “significant unmet needs” of people in prison, particularly women, trans and gender diverse people, according to a new report.
Prison management can now limit incarcerated people’s access to time in the open air for a number of reasons, such as the management, good order or security of the prison.
Have you ever wanted to learn how to draw cartoons or make your own comic strips? It’s easier than you think, and lots of fun. In this first edition of a new series, Melbourne-based artist and cartoonist Brett Cardwell shows us how to get started with cartoon faces.
A cheesecake recipe from inside, sent in by Timothy from a prison in QLD.
I’m sending a drawing I have done – I’ve only been drawing for about eight months now and I’m happy with my progress, as before I could only draw stick figures.
Today I went down the solitary lane, to seek revenge from who owe me pain. What I saw was horrifying, people gathered there too were crying.
Life is what you make it, my friend. The only opinion that should matter is your own. Why? Because beauty is in the beholder’s eyes and in the end, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
My life confined to a white sack, they dress us all the same. The sack is heavy, dragged around, but weighs less than my shame.

Gadjet writes from a prison in VIC.

Fill the grid so every row, column and box contains the numbers 1-9 once.
Meicho writes from a prison in QLD.

Can you find all the words from the clues?