ISSUE NO. 25
August 2026
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Letters

First Time in Prison

By
Adam

Adam writes from a prison in QLD.

Wes Hicks via Unsplash

If you feel like you’ve lost everything and have nothing to look forward to, it is very important that you don’t lose hope for your life.

It is not over and your time in prison can be used as an opportunity to not only improve your prospects for a better future, but to also help you become a better person.

Prison is not some magic cure, but it is an opportunity to reflect upon your life and the decisions you have made and how you can make better decisions moving forward. It is an opportunity to trust your thinking and apply a new positive way of thinking that will result in better outcomes for you.

Throughout your time in prison you will experience hardships and things you believe are wrong. But, in order for you to navigate the system successfully, you’ll have to put them aside and focus on progressing through the system.

It leads to not only easier prison time but to more opportunities to do programs and courses that will help you on the outside, and most importantly, progression means going home to your love ones as soon as possible.

I can’t tell you how to do your prison time, but, if you want to progress through the system, keep your head down, mind your own business, be respectful and focus on improving all aspects of your life through training, learning and applying what you have learnt in a positive way.

Don’t forget: there will be one or two friends that you meet in prison who took you under their wing. These will be new friends who will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Your family and others you were close to before will still be there, right by your side. Don’t push them away in fear of rejection because of your own mistakes.

Failure is all a part of being human and you are allowed to fail, what is more important is that if you fall down, you pick yourself back up and learn from it, and move forward in a positive way.

Everything will be alright.

If you feel like you’ve lost everything and have nothing to look forward to, it is very important that you don’t lose hope for your life.

It is not over and your time in prison can be used as an opportunity to not only improve your prospects for a better future, but to also help you become a better person.

Prison is not some magic cure, but it is an opportunity to reflect upon your life and the decisions you have made and how you can make better decisions moving forward. It is an opportunity to trust your thinking and apply a new positive way of thinking that will result in better outcomes for you.

Throughout your time in prison you will experience hardships and things you believe are wrong. But, in order for you to navigate the system successfully, you’ll have to put them aside and focus on progressing through the system.

It leads to not only easier prison time but to more opportunities to do programs and courses that will help you on the outside, and most importantly, progression means going home to your love ones as soon as possible.

I can’t tell you how to do your prison time, but, if you want to progress through the system, keep your head down, mind your own business, be respectful and focus on improving all aspects of your life through training, learning and applying what you have learnt in a positive way.

Don’t forget: there will be one or two friends that you meet in prison who took you under their wing. These will be new friends who will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Your family and others you were close to before will still be there, right by your side. Don’t push them away in fear of rejection because of your own mistakes.

Failure is all a part of being human and you are allowed to fail, what is more important is that if you fall down, you pick yourself back up and learn from it, and move forward in a positive way.

Everything will be alright.

This
letter
was originally printed in the
August 2026
edition of About Time.

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Welcome to About Time

About Time is the national newspaper for Australian prisons and detention facilities

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