Public invited to gain understanding of life behind bars through magazine

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This article was published 30/01/2025 (304 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At the Headingley Correctional Centre, an inmate puts pen to paper.

Winston will only use his first name when his work is published in the latest edition of The Inside Scoop, to be released Thursday. The annual magazine of art and literature is written by Manitobans who are, or were, incarcerated and is published by the John Howard Society of Manitoba.

Winston, who has been in and out of the justice system on different charges for decades, is serving a year for violating probation. He said when he’s inside, he writes to clear his head.

After some time, a story comes to him — a short fable centred on a village where children have lost their happiness and are visited by the Anishinaabe spirit Nanabozho. Eventually, butterflies visit the village, and the children are healed.

The deceptively simple prose builds into a powerful parable: it’s a story of the ’60s Scoop, with the butterflies symbolizing the passage of time and its power to heal the children. His parents are residential school survivors.

“These things are real to me. It’s like carrying a burden,” Winston, 45, told the Free Press on a call from the jail.

“I want some of it to get out of me. I don’t want to hold them for the rest of my life. I like to share them.”

The John Howard Society, which works with people in the justice system during and after incarceration, has published the magazine since 1993, but this year marks a new era.

For the first time, the magazine is themed — “Where we’re from” — and, along with updates to the design of Scoop, there’s a new editing process in which contributors work with editors to fine-tune their stories.

A launch party, featuring live readings from former inmates and recorded readings from people who are still in jail, is planned for Thursday at X-Cues’ Café and Lounge.

There’s also a push to entice the public to read the publication, editor Anna Sigrithur said.

“A lot of former contributors and current contributors have said, it’s not the people in jail who need to understand this stuff, they already know what our lives are like,” she said.

“We want people from the broader Canadian society, let’s call it, to see and understand more of what living conditions are like, what our day-to-day is like, what we’re feeling and thinking about.”

The editing process is challenging. Inmates can be transferred to one institution from another, mail doesn’t always make it through, there is little to no possibility for digital collaboration — at Stony Mountain prison, for example, there’s a computer lab but they still use floppy discs.

Even the final product has to fit the unique standards of the prison system. Sigrithur shuffles through two stacks of physical copies of The Inside Scoop — the ones set to be handed out in correctional centres are folded, not stapled, as some institutions ban staples.

The value of The Inside Scoop, Sigrithur said, is multi-faceted.

“The spiritual mission of Inside Scoop is to channel dignity for people, and give people a place to feel that pride, and the dignity of work, and the dignity of being able to express themselves,” Sigrithur said.

“That, to me, is number one. I think if we can do that, then everything else is going to work.”

Meanwhile, at John Howard’s halfway house, another writer, Greg, is excited for his children to see his piece in The Inside Scoop.

He was operating a residential construction company when he was sentenced to a year at Stony Mountain, his first time, for what he describes as “improper use of drugs and alcohol.” He was released in November.

Before his time, he said, he hadn’t read a book in more than 30 years. While in prison, he became a voracious reader.

“I was there, and I got offered every drug that you could think of … I wanted to stay clear of everything. I stayed away from the drugs … and I turned to reading,” the 50-year-old said.

His piece in The Inside Scoop is about his sentence and his future.

“As I read, I could feel my mind slowly expanding, as if it had been locked in a cage for years,” his piece, titled A Brush With Time, reads. “And now, finally, it was free.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca