Lora McElhinney

From the inside out – what we free ourselves from when we get rid of prisons

with Abby Rolston

It is much like a classroom in a school on the outside with concrete walls painted off-white, long, folding tables and chairs, windows, white boards and mockable teaching materials that we all ignore. Joint Effort, a group of women on the inside and women on the outside that get together for workshops of mutual interest, has brought the materials into Alouette Correctional Centre for Women for the drawing workshop. Everyone, the woman who is almost due to deliver, the one who wants to write a book called Grandma goes to jail for her grandson, the woman who thought she’d be released last month, is visiting, drawing or both. Most people draw one of three things: boats, horses or roses. Two of which, at least, are ways to get away. (…)