The music program rehabilitating inmates
<p dir="ltr">While a lot of prison inmates are not given the luxuries of life outside jail, one rehabilitation program is giving inmates one of life’s greatest pleasures: music. </p>
<p dir="ltr">For Oli Firth, who was sent to Broken Hill Correctional Centre on drug-related offences, the Songbirds program changed his life.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"[Music] was a real beacon of light for me. It was the one thing that carried me through," he told ABC<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/songbirds:-rehabilitation-and-music-behind-bars/13934620"> RN's Life Matters</a>.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“It was the toughest time in my life.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">The director of the Songbirds program, musician Murray Cook, has played with bands such as Midnight Oil, Mental as Anything and Mixed Relations.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But for more than 20 years, Mr Cook has run music classes in different NSW prisons, including a stint as a music teacher in the psych ward of Sydney's Long Bay Correctional Centre.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The Songbirds program, a project of the non-profit <a href="https://www.crcnsw.org.au/">Community Restorative Centre</a>, brings music and other art forms into prisons, with a focus on songwriting as a means of rehabilitation. </p>
<p dir="ltr">"If you're in jail, it's a jungle. It really is. I'd hate to go there," Mr Cook says.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"Because if you show any emotion, if you let on that you really love your daughter or something like that, [other prisoners] can use that against you. That's a bargaining chip for them to stand over you and get money — threaten to kill your kids, that sort of stuff."</p>
<p dir="ltr">But he says, "Somehow within the context of a song, it's OK to say stuff like that, to say something like, 'I love my partner.'"</p>
<p dir="ltr">As a way of dealing with feelings they believe they can’t vocalise, Mr Cook tries to get inmates to write about their feelings and experiences. </p>
<p dir="ltr">However, he admits this process isn’t always straightforward. </p>
<p dir="ltr">In the first session of a songwriting class, he talks about tolerance, about "not putting anyone else down, [not] being too critical".</p>
<p dir="ltr">"[I also] always say in the first workshop, 'Look, your lives are really valuable … your music is so valuable.'"</p>
<p dir="ltr">He says the classes can be made up of a fairly diverse group, which makes for an accepting and tolerant environment.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"When you look at a group, you've got Islanders, Kooris, Middle Eastern people, bikies … They'd probably kill each other in the yard, as they tend to segregate into their own groups," Mr Cook says.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"[But soon] you see a Koori guy over there working with an Asian guy and a bikie, trying to write a song, it's fantastic."</p>
<p dir="ltr">It’s then over to the prisoners to perfect their songs and, if they choose, perform them for other inmates.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"Once they've got it out and sung it, it's very cathartic. Just to know that somebody's listening to their story," Mr Cook says.</p>
<p dir="ltr">If the inmates choose, Mr Cook helps them record their new tracks, which have been released on a series of Songbird albums over the years. </p>
<p dir="ltr">"Like I always say to people in jail, music is a great way of letting off steam without hurting anyone … [But] I think the core of this is the personal transformation that comes through music," Mr Cook says.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>
