Beyond the Bars

Beyond the Bars

Beyond the Bars is a unique series of live prison radio broadcasts that give voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inmates in Victorian prisons. The broadcasts are presented by 3CR's First Nations broadcasters during NAIDOC* Week (July). Beyond the Bars began in 2002 and each year it features songs, stories, opinions and poems from the men and women inside, while also connecting them with culture and community. *National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee
  • Beyond the Bars 2023, artwork by Troy, proud Yorta Yorta man
    Jul 2023
    Listen to First Nations people from across Victorian prisons during NAIDOC Week 2023 - 3-7 July - Beyond the Bars.
  • Beyond the Bars 2022, 4-8 July
    Jun 2022
    3CR's iconic prison radio show returns to the inside with live broadcasts from across Victorian jails. Listen in Monday to Friday during NAIDOC Week 4-8 July from 11am each day...
  • 20 Years on the Inside
    Aug 2021
    A podcast series hosted by Vickie Roach and Kutcha Edwards reflecting on 20 years of the Beyond the Bars prison radio broadcasts.
  • Beyond the Bars 2021 - 5-9 July
    Jun 2021
    Despite the ongoing challenges of COVID-19 restrictions Beyond the Bars 2021 looks to broadcast from across six Victorian jails. Tune in 5-9 July to hear from Aboriginal and Torres Strait...
  • Beyond the Bars 2020
    Jun 2020
    We didn't bring you our usual live prison broadcasts for Beyond the Bars in 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions. BUT 3CR Indigenous broadcasters recorded messages, cheerios, poems, stories, raps and...
  • Beyond the Bars 2019
    Jun 2019
    Giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inmates a voice during NAIDOC Week with live radio from the inside.
  • Beyond the Bars 2018
    Jun 2018
    Proudly celebrating 17 years on the airwaves – Beyond the Bars is Australia’s only live prison radio broadcast giving a voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inmates.
  • Beyond the Bars 2017 - Photo by Kerri-Lee Harding
    Jun 2017
    Giving a voice to the brothers and sisters on the inside during NAIDOC Week 3-7 July 2017.
  • Beyond the Bars 2016
    Jul 2016
    3CR Beyond the Bars presenters
    Celebrating 15 years on air, Beyond the Bars 2016 features the stories and insights from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women in six Victorian jails.
  • Dame Phyllis Frost Centre 2015
    Jun 2015
    Broadcasting from Dame Phyllis Front Centre, Barwon Prison, Fulham Correctional Centre, Middleton Prison, Port Phillip Prison and Marngoneet Correctional Centre
    Hear from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inmates in Victoria as they join the community celebrations for NAIDOC Week 2015.
  • Beyond The Bars 2014
    Jun 2014
    Now in it’s 12th year on air, Beyond The Bars continues to be a groundbreaking event on the 3CR broadcast calendar.
  • Beyond The Bars 2013
    Jul 2013
    Beyond the Bars 2013 connects indigenous prisoners to the wider community and is a remarkable radio event that gives voice to the experience of indigenous inmates serving time in Victorian prisons.

2023 Beyond the Bars CD Launch.

Beyond the Bars CD launch

 

The following is from 3CR's book 'Radical Radio: Celebrating 40 Years of 3CR' (2016) and provides a history to the Beyond the Bars project. 

Ground-breaking radio

Beyond the Bars

The award-winning Beyond the Bars is one of Australia’s only live prison broadcasts. Beginning in 2002, it is held annually each July during National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) Week and gives voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inmates incarcerated in Victoria’s prisons.

According to the Human Rights Law Centre, in 2014 Victoria had one of the largest increases in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rates in the country, with Aboriginal people incarcerated at eleven times the rate of the non-Aboriginal population. This situation is echoed in the words of the late Paulie from Beyond the Bars 5: ‘Aboriginal people have been in brick and barbed wire all over Australia since Federation. We can take our shit right back to the First Fleet. My philosophy is it’s a white man’s world; it’s a black man’s jail’.

Beyond the Bars initially began as a conversation in 2001 between Port Phillip Prison Aboriginal Liaison Officer Shaun Braybrook and 3CR program manager Jay Estorninho, with the idea of holding a live broadcast from the men’s maximum-security prison for Sorry Day. However, the project didn’t become reality until 2002, when Shaun broached the idea of broadcasting during NAIDOC Week with then director of Port Phillip Prison, Kelvin Anderson. In 2002, seven Aboriginal programmers from 3CR broadcast live for four hours from Port Phillip Prison in Laverton. Gilla McGuinness, Johnny Mac, Freddy Norris and Haiden Briggs presented the Koori Youth Show, Kutcha Edwards hosted Songlines, and Ross Morgan and Lester Green presented Living Free, a program dedicated to drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

For the inmates involved in the project, Beyond the Bars had an enormous impact. ‘When you’re inside a prison everything’s taken away from you,’ says Shaun. ‘You lose a lot of your power. You’re told when you shower, you’re told when you eat, but it was really empowering for the fellas to speak about culture, to be able to know that family were listening on the outside, that people listen to their stories. It really boosted them up, gave them self-confidence, belief, being able to talk to the community, and they were able to walk proud within the prison. The whole prison would listen to it.’

For Kutcha the injustice of being a member of the Stolen Generations affected his journey through the project. ‘Maybe because I had lived most of my life, my childhood in an institution, you know, eleven years, from age eighteen months to thirteen years old, in an institution in the Eastern suburbs, so I knew what it was like,’ he reflects. ‘I knew how I felt, and how destructive that kind of lifestyle can be, especially as an Aboriginal person. And denial of my human basic right, which is to be with my family, to be denied that. Not only that, my language, my culture, my extended family, my spirituality––in this institution. So I suppose with my work at 3CR, it was only a flow-on effect that we would go on to create Beyond the Bars.’

In 2003 broadcasting also began with women prisoners at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre at Deer Park, with Kutcha and the late Lisa Bellear. Lisa played a key role in the Deer Park broadcasts, facilitating writing workshops with the women and supporting them to tell stories about their lives.

In 2006 Lisa told The Age: ‘What I tried to do was get them writing and reading poetry for the broadcast. I tell them as long as you've got one word down it means you've got the ability, and we'll work from there. People have prejudice against work produced in a prison situation: “Oh, it's just jail poetry”. But this is a powerful and valid form of expression’.

A Beyond the Bars double CD featuring artworks, stories, songs, cheerios, and the voices of inmates has been compiled and distributed for free since 2004. Beyond the Bars is also broadcast on the National Indigenous Radio Service (NIRS) and simulcast on Melbourne Indigenous radio 3KND. As Beyond the Bars broadcaster Shiralee Hood told the Mandurah Mail, ‘In media and society, there are stereotypes about why Aboriginal people are over-represented in the prison system. This makes it personal. When you hear someone’s story, you understand’.

‘Over the last thirteen years we’ve connected family that wouldn’t have gotten to hear their brothers and sisters in the prison,’ says Gilla. ‘We’ve always come through the front door, never off the prison truck.’ It is the respect for the broadcasters involved and for 3CR that has seen Beyond the Bars grow to include six Victorian prisons in the annual broadcast.

Both Gilla and Kutcha speak of the importance of stepping back and letting young Aboriginal broadcasters be involved. From his thirteen years of experience with the project, Kutcha offers this advice: ‘It’s not an easy road, radio, but if I can impart anything it’s this––“I’ve been where you’ve been, and I can have that conversation rather than interviewing you”. Sit and have the conversation so they feel as though they’re around the kitchen table or the fire out the back or on the river, ’cause that’s where they wanna be. Fair enough they know that they’re in a jail, but for the ten or fifteen minutes that they’re having a yarn, they don’t wanna be there. They wanna be home. And that’s how I sort of worked my way through Beyond the Bars, to sit and have the conversation rather than the interview’.

 

 

 

 

 

 
  • Prison broadcasts poster 2007

  • Beyond the Bars poster 2006

  • Prison broadcasts 2004

  • Beyond the Bars workshop Johnny and Gilla 2010

  • Beyond the Bars workshop 2010

  • Beyond the Bars 2007 - CD Cover

  • Beyond the Bars CD Launch 2011

  • NAIDOC Week 2016 Poster

  • NAIDOC Week 2014

  • NAIDOC Week 2006 Poster