VOLUME 9, NUMBER 1 (1998) is a general issue of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons edited by Liz Elliott, Stephen Reid and Peter Murphy.
The Journal of Prisoners on Prisons (JPP) is a prisoner-written, academically oriented and peer-reviewed non-profit journal based on the tradition of the penal press. JPP brings the knowledge produced by prison writers together with academic arguments to enlighten public discourse about the current state of carceral institutions. This is particularly important because, with few exceptions, definitions of deviance and constructions of those participating in these defined acts are incompletely created by social scientists, media representatives, politicians and individuals in the legal community.
These analyses most often promote self-serving interests, omit the voices of those most affected and facilitate repressive and reactionary penal policies and practices. As a result, the JPP attempts to acknowledge the accounts, experiences and criticisms of the criminalized by providing an educational forum where women and men can participate in the development of research that concerns them directly. In an age where “crime” has become lucrative and exploitable, the JPP exists as an important alternate source of information that competes with popularly held stereotypes and misconceptions about those who are currently, or who have in the past, faced the deprivation of liberty.

Liz Elliot's profile page

Stephen Reid began writing in 1984 while serving a twenty-one-year prison sentence for his role as a member of the “Stopwatch Gang”, so named for their ability to rob banks and armoured cars in less than two minutes. During his sentence, he submitted a manuscript to Susan Musgrave, then writer-in-residence at the University of Waterloo. This developed into an ongoing correspondence, and Reid and Musgrave were married in 1986 at Kent Institution. Reid also published his novel, Jackrabbit Parole, that year. His articles and essays have been published in Playboy, Vice, Vancouver Magazine, Writers’ Digest, Prison Journal, Monday, and the Globe & Mail. He has taught creative writing, worked as a youth counsellor, and served on boards such as the John Howard Society and PEN Canada. Reid lived with Musgrave and his two daughters in Sidney, BC until 1999, when he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for a bank robbery in Victoria, after a prolonged bout with heroin and cocaine addiction.

Stephen Reid's profile page

Peter Murphy's profile page