>
> Original from: Judy Greene <greenej@interactive.net>
>
> Last week when I was in Berlin I spent an afternoon at Tegel Prison with a
> friend of mine -- Bernd Sprenger -- who teaches social work at the Free
> University, and is a long-time prison activist. He founded an
> organization, "Art and Prisons" which recruits artists and theater people
> to support the work of prison artists -- some of whom I have come to know.
> Bernd's role is to recruit the free-world volunteer artists and then
> badger the Ministry of Justice to allow these things to happen. During my
> last visit to Berlin I attended a dress rehearsal for a prisoner
> production of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next" at Tegel prison. This
> trip I went back to Tegel to see the theater troop, and to meet with
> prisoners who have designed and maintain a prison website -- the only
> prisoner-managed website in the world so far as I know (please let me know
> if you've seen others).
>
> The Tegel website is not done "online" -- the prisoners relay their work
> to outside volunteers (recruited in this case by an ex-Tegel prisoner who
> runs the project with them) and then uploaded to a server. Same is true
> of emails -- the volunteers relay them to the prisoners (who keep them in
> big scrapbooks) and then their replies are uploaded by the volunteers and
> sent out. It takes time, therefore, but you can communicate with
> prisoners by email, and they with you, nonetheless.
>
> The website has gotten rave reviews in the German media (which makes the
> prison officials happy) and so my friend Bernd is hoping to be able to
> convince them to allow the prisoners to work directly online sometime
> soon. The prisoners hope to have the site "mirrored" in English by
> sometime next year.
>
> The website is so important, I think, as a demonstration of how the
> Internet can be used to educate people about prison life, and about the
> many positive projects prisoners take up while serving their sentences.
>
> Take a look here:
>
> http://www.planet-tegel.de/pages/start/pl_tegel.html
>
> And please share this URL with others who might want to know about this
> project.
>
> JG
>
>
> Brett Collins
> Breakout Design & Print (coordinator)
> Justice Action (a spokesperson)
> 19 Buckland St, Chippendale, NSW 2008, Australia
> P.O. Box 386, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia
> email: brett@justiceaction.org.au
> voice: 61-2-9281-5100 fax: 9281-5303
>
> Please log into the Justice Action Web site, designed and sponsored by
> Breakout Design & Print, exercising good corporate citizenship:
> http://www.justiceaction.org.au
>
>
>