Australian Universities’ Review - Ghosts in the Machine - Incarcerated Students and the Digital University

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Ben

The paper examines how incarcerated students in Australia face compounded disadvantage as higher education becomes increasingly digitised through eLearning. It highlights structural barriers: most prisoners have no direct internet access, limited reliable technology, and restricted ability to engage with online university study. Drawing on teaching experience with incarcerated students, it analyses neo-liberal pressures shaping prison and university reforms and discusses obstacles to successful program completion. It also evaluates gaps in official “access” narratives and offers ways to better support imprisoned learners.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Ghosts in the Machine

Stone walls, iron bars and hardware

Ghosts inside the digital learning machine

Disadvantage, inequality, and incarceration policy

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W Ghosts in the machine Incarcerated students and the Digital University Susan Hopkins University of Southern Queensland Providing higher education to offenders in custody has become an increasingly complex business in the age of digital learning. Most Australian prisoners still have no direct access to the internet and relatively unreliable access to information technology. As incarceration is now a business, prisons, like universities, are increasingly subject to economistic pressures and priorities. Historically Britain’s penal colony,(post)modern Australia is following the United States toward a post-Welfare Penal state. Without specialised support and materials, incarcerated students may pay the price of converging neoliberal reforms. This paper aims to raise awareness among Australian academics of the challenges faced by incarcerated students in changing socio-political and economic climates. Keywords: incarcerated students, prison education, penal state Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage. Richard Lovelace (1642) Stone walls, iron bars and hardware While stone walls and iron bars do not a post-Fordist prison make, incarcerated students remain disadvantaged by their imposed isolation from networked digital communication technologies. The majority of Australian prisoners have no direct access to the internet which not only frustrates their access to higher education but leaves them inadequately prepared for re-entry to the twenty first century information society and economy. Previously, prisoners undertaking university study could rely on hard copy, paper course materials which were printed and posted out by distance education providers. However, with the ascendency of eLearning, tertiary study has moved online and increasingly out of reach of prisoners who do not have reliable access to networked computers. In many cases, the digital revolution has exacerbated the marginalisation of incarcerated students. Despite public misconceptions about ‘doing time,’the management of time and technology in a prison is 46 Ghosts in the machine Susan Hopkins generally not conducive to the successful completion of higher education programs. Behind prison walls, students are particularly vulnerable to the economic, technical and political rationality of neo-liberalism, which promotes the digitisation of mass education, the vocationalisation of higher education, the shift to a post-Welfare punitive state, higher levels of social inequality and the populist dehumanisation of outsider groups. In particular, this paper discusses the obstacles and constraints faced by incarcerated university students in light of the increasing integration of electronic learning or eLearning in Australian higher education. The data and motivation for this paper derives from teaching incarcerated tertiary preparation students, both ata distance and face to face. The aim of this paper is to raise awareness among academics regarding the multiple barriers and practices that adversely affect prisoners who choose to study and to offer suggestions on how to better support incarcerated students. On another level, this discussion also highlights the limitations of official discourses of ‘access’ against the landscape of neoliberal reform in both prisons and universities. The increasingly precarious position of incarcerated students reflects the contradictions and complexities of ‘democratised’ and vol. 57, no. 2, 2015 A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W digitised higher education within a political climate of economic rationalism and prison privatisation. Ghosts inside the digital learning machine Incarcerated learners are in the main a doubly disadvantaged subgroup of low socioeconomic status, isolated and marginalised students. In part this is because Australia’s use of incarceration reproduces and reinforces social and economic inequa

FAQs

Why are incarcerated students disadvantaged in Australia’s digital higher education system?

Most prisoners lack direct internet access and have unreliable access to technology, which limits participation in online higher education and undermines preparation for the information society after release.

What economic and political pressures does the paper link to prison and university digitisation?

It connects the move toward digitised mass education with neo-liberal reforms, increased social inequality, and prison-state shifts, arguing these pressures shape constraints faced by incarcerated learners.

What does the paper aim to achieve for academics and incarcerated students?

It raises awareness of challenges faced by incarcerated students in changing socio-political and economic contexts, identifies multiple barriers, and suggests practices to better support prisoners who choose to study.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Ben