Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

About Time is a national newspaper for incarcerated people, by incarcerated people. It is a free print and online publication that provides essential information about issues that affect incarcerated people, including those relating to their legal affairs, health and education. It is a paper that seeks to provide incarcerated people with a voice to express themselves and share their experiences, and to help them relate to each other and those outside. Most of the content in each edition is created by people who are currently or were formerly incarcerated.

‍About Time is for others as well. It is for everyone who works or volunteers inside prisons, including guards, librarians and teachers. It is for family members and friends of those currently in prison, and for those who were formerly incarcerated. It is for people with an interest in the criminal justice system and for the public as well.

About Time is published by About Time Media Ltd, a not-for-profit with the goal of providing a window into the hidden world of incarceration and a voice to the incarcerated.

About Time Media Ltd is represented by individuals from across Australia, including lawyers, academics, writers and advocates who work in the criminal justice field. These individuals include people with lived experience in the criminal justice system and First Nations representation.

About Time is edited by our editor-in-chief, Rosie Heselev, our assistant editor, Denham Sadler, and a team of volunteers.

About Time is published online and in print 12 times per year.

About Time is currently distributed in print, for free, to every prison in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia and the ACT. The digital version of About Time is uploaded, for free, to every prison tablet in New South Wales, and each incarcerated person receives an alert that the paper is available for download.

Incarcerated people have limited access to information freely available outside the prison walls. They have limited or no access to the internet, restricted or no access to newspapers and mainstream media and limited opportunities for self-expression.

A newspaper targeted towards incarcerated people, focusing on issues that affect them, and written predominantly by them, seeks to alleviate some of these limitations. It provides them information that might be helpful in keeping positive, relating to others experiencing something similar (or different) and preparing for the future. It gives them an outlet to express their (often remarkable) creativity through letters, creative writing, art, poetry and other means. It satisfies their intellectual curiosity and stimulates their minds.

In focus groups that we ran with formerly incarcerated people, and in many conversations with those currently incarcerated, there was a universally enthusiastic response to the idea of a national prison newspaper in Australia.

The idea comes from a similar newspaper in the United Kingdom.

Since 1990, a charitable trust based in the UK has published a monthly broadsheet prison newspaper called Inside Time.

‍Inside Time, which now has more than 60 colour pages in each edition, is distributed free of charge to each cell in all UK prisons and detention facilities. It is an immensely popular newspaper, loved by incarcerated people, guards, librarians and all those involved in the prison system, with the paper receiving many hundreds of contributions each month.

It is a resource for tens of thousands of incarcerated people in the UK and a source of inspiration for us in Australia, which lacks anything equivalent.

Inside Time’s success is largely due to the close relationship the paper has with His Majesty’s Prison Service in the UK. About Time strives to have a similarly cooperative relationship with each of the state and territory corrections departments.

We need to raise a significant amount of money to fund the design, printing and distribution of the monthly paper, which is expensive and continues to increase as we expand access to more locations.

The more money we raise, the better chance we have of growing About Time sustainably, bringing new employees on board and introducing new initiatives.

We have received approval from the Victorian, NSW, Tasmanian, Queensland, ACT, Western Australian and South Australian corrections departments to publish the newspaper in their respective states and territories. They assist us with distribution within their prisons. We are in discussion with the Northern Territory and hope to work with them so that the paper can be distributed in their prisons as well.

We provide each monthly edition to each corrections departments shortly before distribution. They don't have the right to edit, however we do work with them to ensure there is nothing in the paper that is false, defamatory, overly inflammatory or otherwise unsuitable.

We give incarcerated people the opportunity to express themselves without any excessive filter. We are open to receiving all contributions, and we encourage contributors to write freely and honestly. We do not have any rules prohibiting contributions about crimes, though we do ensure everything that is published is respectful and leaves out victims’ and victims’ families names and identifying information without consent.

We do identify contributors unless they request for us to remain anonymous, which we of course respect. If a contributor is writing from inside prison, at this stage we only publish their first name and location.

We trust our contributors and begin from the starting point that their writing (if non-fiction) is truthful. If there is something that causes us, or corrections departments, to doubt the veracity of a letter/contribution, we will follow up with the contributor before publication.

Yes, we welcome all contributions.

Yes. We aim to produce topical news stories relevant to the criminal justice system, and we aim to commission these stories.