The information needs and practices of people living in Australian prisons

What is it about?

This paper is a report of research undertaken in six Australian adult prisons. The research goal was to understand the information needs of people living in these prisons, the places they go to try to meet their information needs, and how successful they were at finding the information they needed.

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Photo by Robert Klank on Unsplash

Photo by Robert Klank on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This research is important because it gave a voice to a sector of our communities that are not often heard. It gave them a chance to explain what their information needs were, and how they went about trying to meet those needs in an environment without the internet. It gave the researcher an opportunity to understand information seeking practices in an information-poor environment, and to test Chatman's theory of Information Poverty. It also gave a unique gendered perspective by exploring the different information seeking behaviours of females and males living in prisons.