Providing meaningful education and personal development opportunities for women in NSW prisons is complex. National prison entrant data indicates that women entering custody are more likely than men to have completed higher levels of schooling, highlighting the need for educational programs that respond to their specific experiences and learning needs.
Research has shown that prison-based education can support rehabilitation, improve employment opportunities after release and reduce the likelihood of reoffending.
Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) has started to prioritise gender-responsive, trauma-informed, and rehabilitative programming to teach incarcerated women skills for a permanent and positive shift in their identity and sense of belonging. With the University of Sydney, they are offering the Moral Emotions Inside (MEI) program for which arts‑based learning plays a central role.
Dr Jedidiah Evans, a lecturer in English and Writing in the School of Art, Communication and English, specialises in researching arts and incarceration.
Dr Evans has been a key driver in integrating prison arts and education into the University’s curriculum and building partnerships with correctional centres across NSW. From 2022, Dr Evans, Associate Professor Sam Shpall and Dr Sacha Jamieson have run versions of their program Moral Emotions Inside (MEI) at NSW women’s prisons.
MEI is a humanities-based program that features intensive seminars on moral emotions through the lens of philosophy, poetry, and social policy.
Across Dillwynia and Silverwater Women’s, MEI has engaged dozens of incarcerated women and has helped establish a student-led carceral justice group (Bridges Inside) and initiated a partnership through a large Faculty interdisciplinary unit that provides University of Sydney students an opportunity to apply their knowledge and experience in a capstone project as part of their studies.
The program was designed to enable the women going through incarceration to be listened to, and for their educational needs determined and realised. It provided a space where women felt safe and were able to express themselves without fear of judgement.
The impact has been profound: participants developed stronger critical reasoning skills, demonstrated an enhanced capacity for empathy, and gained a deeper ability to self-reflect — particularly to understand their own experiences and the circumstances that led to their incarceration.
The success of the program helped secure Australian Research Council Linkage funding to expand research into the impact of humanities education for incarcerated women in NSW. The pilot programs have received funding from the University of Sydney's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
Explore more success stories to discover what's possible through partnership
Every successful partnership starts with a conversation. Whether you're exploring an idea or ready to launch a project, we can help connect you with the right expertise, facilities and people to achieve your goals.