About Time is the national newspaper for Australian prisons and detention facilities
Your browser window currently does not have enough height, or is zoomed in too far to view our website content correctly. Once the window reaches the minimum required height or zoom percentage, the content will display automatically.
Alternatively, you can learn more via the links below.
Stacey Stokes is a transgender girl who had a 10 and a half year sentence in a men’s prison. She has an undergraduate in creative writing and has recently been published extensively, most notably, “Nothing to hide, tales of trans and gender diverse Australia”, which was published and distributed internationally by Allen & Unwin. Stacey was a recipient of the 2025 Varuna Trans and Gender Diverse Fellowship to develop her manuscript, My World.
Jose Gil via Unsplash
Video games can be helpful for people both inside and leaving prison. They’re not only entertaining, but they can help people deal with the trauma of prison and re-entry in the community.
During the Covid pandemic, games provided a stress relieving and mentally stimulating escape from the effects of lockdown. If gaming can have such positive effects on player well-being during a global pandemic, they may be a game changer in prison environments.
Video games in prison could have many potential benefits. Just like during the pandemic, playing video games can serve as a form of escapism, helping to alleviate stress and anxiety associated with prison life. The mind isn’t designed for constant stress and anxiety, and engaging in gaming can provide a temporary reprieve from the harsh realities of confinement.
Saving for a console and the games could be a reason to go to work, and looking forward to new game releases could keep you engaged in what’s happening in the world. It would also make staff safer as video games would provide a constructive outlet, reducing frustration and aggression, reducing conflicts and violent incidents within correctional facilities. Keeping your console and games could also be a motivator for good behaviour.
Video games can also be educational. Many video games require reading, strategic and problem-solving skills, which can help enhance cognitive abilities. I learnt how to read from playing video games when I was younger – so did many of my friends. Our school was pretty rubbish, but Final Fantasy on PlayStation wasn’t. We really wanted to know what the words said. So we asked people to tell us, and we remembered. We really wanted to defeat the bosses, so we figured out the puzzles.
Unfortunately, the use of video games in correctional facilities is not uniform and varies significantly between states and prisons. Some facilities permit limited access. Many strictly prohibit video games due to security concerns or the perception they are an inappropriate luxury. The decision to permit or ban video games often reflects a facility’s philosophy regarding punishment versus rehabilitation.
There are obvious concerns about the potential misuse of gaming equipment, and there are occasions where they have been misused. To that I’ve always said, ‘if a person gets hit with a mug, do you ban mugs? Then they get hit with a chair, would you ban chairs?’ So, rather than saying why it can’t happen, figure out how it can happen.
As I alluded to earlier, there is the unfortunate attitude that prison is a place of punishment and video games are a luxury item that inmates don’t deserve. Legally though, going to jail is the punishment, not what happens there.
My jail didn’t allow gaming consoles. I remember one of the guys (who was very well-behaved) was utterly determined to get a video gaming console. He lodged constant requests and inquiries, but to no avail. The system just wasn’t interested.
After years of longing for my old PlayStation, the first thing I did when I got out was get a Switch.
Now, years later. and I still don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs or binge drink. I don’t even eat much junk food. I do, however, have nightmares of prison. But I play video games every day. And I cope. Maybe I would have coped better in jail if I had an outlet then. Maybe I’d not be having so many nightmares now.
I honestly credit video games as one of the major reasons I’m still free.
Video games can be helpful for people both inside and leaving prison. They’re not only entertaining, but they can help people deal with the trauma of prison and re-entry in the community.
During the Covid pandemic, games provided a stress relieving and mentally stimulating escape from the effects of lockdown. If gaming can have such positive effects on player well-being during a global pandemic, they may be a game changer in prison environments.
Video games in prison could have many potential benefits. Just like during the pandemic, playing video games can serve as a form of escapism, helping to alleviate stress and anxiety associated with prison life. The mind isn’t designed for constant stress and anxiety, and engaging in gaming can provide a temporary reprieve from the harsh realities of confinement.
Saving for a console and the games could be a reason to go to work, and looking forward to new game releases could keep you engaged in what’s happening in the world. It would also make staff safer as video games would provide a constructive outlet, reducing frustration and aggression, reducing conflicts and violent incidents within correctional facilities. Keeping your console and games could also be a motivator for good behaviour.
Video games can also be educational. Many video games require reading, strategic and problem-solving skills, which can help enhance cognitive abilities. I learnt how to read from playing video games when I was younger – so did many of my friends. Our school was pretty rubbish, but Final Fantasy on PlayStation wasn’t. We really wanted to know what the words said. So we asked people to tell us, and we remembered. We really wanted to defeat the bosses, so we figured out the puzzles.
Unfortunately, the use of video games in correctional facilities is not uniform and varies significantly between states and prisons. Some facilities permit limited access. Many strictly prohibit video games due to security concerns or the perception they are an inappropriate luxury. The decision to permit or ban video games often reflects a facility’s philosophy regarding punishment versus rehabilitation.
There are obvious concerns about the potential misuse of gaming equipment, and there are occasions where they have been misused. To that I’ve always said, ‘if a person gets hit with a mug, do you ban mugs? Then they get hit with a chair, would you ban chairs?’ So, rather than saying why it can’t happen, figure out how it can happen.
As I alluded to earlier, there is the unfortunate attitude that prison is a place of punishment and video games are a luxury item that inmates don’t deserve. Legally though, going to jail is the punishment, not what happens there.
My jail didn’t allow gaming consoles. I remember one of the guys (who was very well-behaved) was utterly determined to get a video gaming console. He lodged constant requests and inquiries, but to no avail. The system just wasn’t interested.
After years of longing for my old PlayStation, the first thing I did when I got out was get a Switch.
Now, years later. and I still don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs or binge drink. I don’t even eat much junk food. I do, however, have nightmares of prison. But I play video games every day. And I cope. Maybe I would have coped better in jail if I had an outlet then. Maybe I’d not be having so many nightmares now.
I honestly credit video games as one of the major reasons I’m still free.
We’re Bull Press. We make games – conversational tabletop games – for a prison environment. Most of us have spent time in prison, and we’re based in the USA.
The genre is crime fiction, set in the Australian outback, in rural, sometimes insular communities where everyone seems to know everyone else. This is set in the outback NSW town of Cobb where a woman, a local school teacher, has been stoned to death.
Set in the period following ‘The Great War’ (World War I), Wicked Little Letters is a comedic re-telling of true events that took place in Littlehampton, England.
King 810, a nu metal band from the USA, toured Australia in March. I went, and a lot of other criminals went too. There was even a few reintegration officers spotted in the crowd. Simply because, they strike a chord… with those who have lived hardship.
Without About Time, I don’t know where I would be – Mark, from a prison in Victoria
We need your help so that we can print and distribute the paper to every person in every prison for at least the next year. We value whatever you can spare, no matter how big or small.
Australia’s prison population is growing, and our many prisons are spread far and wide.
We need your help so that we can print and distribute the paper to every person in every prison for at least the next year. We need your help to cover postage for anyone who sends us a letter from the inside.
We value whatever you can spare, no matter how big or small.
