NAIDOC Week prison radio on 3CR is 18

Beyond the Bars, Australia’s only live prison radio broadcast series, giving a voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inmates in Victorian jails, celebrates it’s 18th year on 3CR.
 
Featuring stories, songs, opinions and poems from over 100 men and women in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, Marngoneet Correctional Centre, Fulham Correctional Centre, Loddon Prison, Port Phillip Prison, Barwon Prison, and Karreenga Annex, the all-black radio broadcast team present the broadcasts during NAIDOC Week. 
 
The project prides itself on connecting prisoners with culture and community, and including them in the NAIDOC Week activities with one inmate at Marngoneet Correctional Centre  saying “People that are locked up are using our voice to get what we want to say out to the community. We can only have mail through letters, and 10 minute phone calls, and a couple of hours visits. But with this you can sit down and get your point across. [For] the younger generation, you can sit there and try [to tell them] not to come into prison, to try and stay away from it, this isn’t the life for anyone.”
 
Another inmate says, “I believe that Beyond the Bars is a good program for people who are incarcerated and in jail. I believe it gives them a good perspective of opening themselves up to the communities they come from, and the ability to be able to extend their love and support to everyone they know on the outside.”
 
Beyond the Bars broadcasts from seven Victorian prisons during NAIDOC Week 8-12 July and can be heard on 3CR 855AM, 3CR Digital or streaming live, and receives financial support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation, the Department of Justice and Regulation, and the City of Yarra. 
 
Previous years are available online.

 
 
 

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