School of Sociology and Social Work

The prison as an institution in society is a complex and multi layered set of social relations
confined to specific geographical places. Working with prisoners in these circumstances is a
necessary and important task as they are nearly all released back into society. This highlights
not only issues of the causes of crime and the nature of punishment, but also the importance
of understanding and supporting the processes of desistance (of ceasing offending), pro-social
change and community reintegration in that setting. The task of corrections is to maintain the
safe order and security of the prison, reduce risk and recidivism, and support pro-social
change in prisoners. It is the latter part which is difficult as corrections broadly applies
mechanisms of security, but often fails to identify suitable individual solutions.
The research explores the use and impact of community service activities as a means of
assisting desistance from crime for both minimum enclosed and minimum open prisoners in
the custody of Tasmania Prison Service. In the past, community service has been used in
many jurisdictions as a low level reintegration mechanism, seeing it as meeting the public or
local community needs. This research examines the impact and benefits to individual
prisoners, the agencies and stakeholders they are assisting, and assesses the efficacy of
community service activities to promote desistance and reintegration. Fourteen different
prisoner community service activities are considered here – for the first time in the public
domain.
The findings of this study show that community service activities have a positive impact at a
number of levels: on the staff and volunteers in the agencies, the communities who are
recipients and beneficiaries of community service activities and, ultimately, the prisoners
who develop their social capital, showcase their existing human capital and access real
opportunities and supports for reintegration. This framework is developed in the context of
Tasmania, and yet has relevance and utility to be tailored for other jurisdictions.

This post is from Steve Graham, a Reintegration Consultant, Tasmania Prison Service, in Australia. Steve undertook the research summarised here in 2012 as part of his Masters of Criminology with the University of Tasmania, while concurrently working in the prison.

This Working Paper explains and contextualises 'community service activities' within prison, and introduces an evaluator tool. First, these activities are defined and positioned against a backdrop of academic literature and real-world practices in supporting desistance from crime and reintegration. Following this, a rationale and overview of the evaluator tool are provided. This working paper provides an online tool to score current prison programs providing giving back opportunities for prisoners and suggests measures to increase their effectiveness.

In light of cultural discourses that position femininity at odds with technology, I was inspired by the work of
Donna Haraway to examine how women amputees experience and negotiate feminine embodiment with
prosthetic limbs. In her germinal Manifesto for Cyborgs, Haraway theorised the cyborg as a feminist symbol of a
utopian “post-gendered world,” asserting that techno-hybridity has the potential to destabilise embodied gendered
subjectivity—prompting a rethinking of sex, bodies, gender and humanity. In this paper, following a critical
discussion of Haraway’s work, I argue that the cyborg continues to be a provocative concept in feminist sociologies
of the body, enabling us to explore the complex new subjectivities that are made possible through feminine
techno-embodiment. Trough an empirical exploration of women amputees’ experiences of living with prosthetic
limbs, I found that women can embody and incorporate prosthetic technologies into their feminine selves in
multiple, complex, gendered ways. My fndings indicate that cyborgian hybridity may have the potential to
destabilise some aspects of gendered embodiment and performance for women with prosthetic limbs, which can
be experienced as both limiting and liberating.

This article uses online advertisements to gain retroactive insights into the use and disuse of wearable self-tracking technologies in everyday life. This is achieved by examining over 2700 listings for devices from manufacturers like Apple, Fitbit, and Garmin. These listings are sourced from an online secondhand marketplace—Gumtree Australia. In this exchange space, sellers often draw on existing retail product descriptions and aim to encourage prospective buyers with positive descriptions. Despite the “sale imperative” of these advertisements, item descriptions often feature disclosures about health goals, bodily capacities, and social expectations. This article identifies a system of for “values”—activity, social, financial, exchange—that inform advertisements for wearable self-tracking devices. Wearable devices are highly transient in the secondhand space. Yet, the apparent importance of undertaking personal self-tracking projects is constantly espoused, even as devices are passed on to new users.

Since the advent of the smartphone, users have become accustomed to alerts, notifications and reminders to interact with their internet-connected devices. But how do people make sense of prompts to exercise, eat or sleep? Digital self-tracking is a phenomenon that has grown substantially in recent years. However, despite some notable exceptions, there is still little sociological research into how users of wearable devices and apps subjectively experience self-tracking. This article draws on findings from a small qualitative study with 11 participants to reveal eminent themes in how users make sense of their self-tracking. Utilising and extending Lupton’s theorising of self-tracking, we argue for triple roles of self-tracking devices; ‘tool’, ‘toy’ and ‘tutor’. This trichotomy helps to characterise the use of self-tracking devices and apps, allowing us to reflect on the wider, ongoing implications of self-tracking.

... Sonya Stanford a * pages 209-220. ... “Reconfiguring child welfare practices: risk, advanced liberalism, and the government of freedom”. In Reading Foucault for social work , Edited by: Chambon, AS, Irving, A. and Epstein, L. 101–129. New York: Columbia University Press. ...

The broad transnational reach of Mohandas K Gandhi's satyagraha methods of non-violent political and social activism has resulted in affirmative changes monumental to the civil rights of oppressed peoples. Beginning with his arrival in South Africa, and the circumstances that lead to this shy lawyer becoming the Mahatma, or Great Soul, this paper will chronicle the extension of Gandhi's non-violent philosophy from it's birthplace in the Transvaal to the civil rights movements of African-Americans in the United States of America and the geographically isolated Australian Aborigine.