Dr Lukas Carey, a long-time educator, trainer, coach and research academic at Edith Cowan University, recently published an article about how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting incarnated learners, entitled ‘Education while imprisoned during the COVID-19 outbreak, the forgotten frontier’.

While Carey did concede that not all educational facilities or programs at jails have their prisoners’ education disrupted, enough inmates are angry about it, saying it perpetuates the stereotype that prisoners are irredeemable and not worthy of a full education.

The research academic was able ask detainees what they thought about the current state of education amid COVID-19. The responses were varied, poignant and underscore just how much more work needs to be done in this field.

“The officers won’t even let us use the computers. They have locked down the library for everyone and that’s where the computers are. It is really s***and makes the guys trying to learn really angry. They just don’t care,” one detainee said.

Another said: “My father comes home soon, we are counting down the days but he recently started an excavator course he paid for from his prison savings. He won’t be able to finish this course, can’t get a refund and is feeling very depressed that he can’t get things done.”

Campus Review interviewed  Carey, whose special research interests  include criminology and convict criminology, to discuss the largely forgotten learners behind bars.

Dr Lukas Carey, a long-time educator, trainer, coach and research academic at Edith Cowan University, recently published an article about how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting incarnated learners, entitled ‘Education while imprisoned during the COVID-19 outbreak, the forgotten frontier’. While Carey did concede that not all educational facilities or programs at jails have their prisoners’ education disrupted, enough inmates are angry about it, saying it perpetuates the stereotype that prisoners are irredeemable and not worthy of a full education. The research academic was able ask detainees what they thought about the current state of education amid COVID-19. The responses were varied, poignant and underscore just how much more work needs to be done in this field. “The officers won’t even let us use the computers. They have locked down the library for everyone and that’s where the computers are. It is really s***and makes the guys trying to learn really angry. They just don’t care,” one detainee said. Another said: “My father comes home soon, we are counting down the days but he recently started an excavator course he paid for from his prison savings. He won’t be able to finish this course, can’t get a refund and is feeling very depressed that he can’t get things done.” Campus Review interviewed Carey, whose special research interests include criminology and convict criminology, to discuss the largely forgotten learners behind bars.

Campus Review

Dr Lukas Carey, a long-time educator, trainer, co…

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