Locked up at age 16, this former inmate now runs tours of the place he spent many years - and found redemption.
Chris Austin was one of the first people incarcerated in Jika Jika, Pentridge Prison’s notorious maximum-security division.
Austin’s career as an artist began a decade ago when he was imprisoned at Fulham Correctional Centre. He met representatives of The Torch, the Victorian organisation that encourages incarcerated First Nations people to explore their identity and culture through creative expression.Credit:“That changed all our lives. It was the first time in our lives that we felt good about something. It was the first time I’d ever started something and was able to make some money from it,” he says.
It’s not hyperbole to say that art broke the 30-year cycle of repeated incarceration. “I got involved with The Torch and that taught me what my parents went through, what my grandparents went through, how I ended up on this cycle,” he says. “It turned me around. It showed me that I don’t have to get out of jail no more and steal and all that.”
“We’re not just bad people. We’re here because of circumstances that are uncontrollable for us, or that we thought were uncontrollable at the time. But we can change it.”
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