It's a setting more familiar for those who've found themselves on the wrong side of the law but could Canberra uni students one day attend classes inside the Alexander Maconochie Centre?
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The architects of a UK program that allowed university students and inmates to learn side-by-side have toured Canberra's jail ahead of a forum on the role of education in the prison system on Wednesday.
Dr Ruth Armstrong and Dr Amy Ludlow of the University of Cambridge designed Learning Together, a program where a university course is taught in prison to both inmates and students.
It's not uncommon for people in jail to attain their university degrees or to have uni students visit inmates but what is unusual is having classmates from both the inside and outside learning along side each other.
Dr Armstrong said students who were hesitant to participate in the program often found their prejudices were holding them back.
"What they come to realise over the course is there's more that unites them than separates them," Dr Armstrong said.
"Some of the people from the university were nervous about going into prison and sometimes had to deal with quite difficult emotions of realising someone you quite like aspects of could have done something in their life that you find deeply abhorrent."
Dr Ludlow said education has been proven to help stop recidivism but this program has the additional benefit of giving detainees links to the outside world.
"Education helps generate in people a sense they can be something different and have broadened horizons but what it can also do is move people into spaces and give them avenues through which people can exercise new senses of self," she said.
"That, for us, is where the new community connection really comes in because it's pointless altering someone's internal beliefs and desires about wanting to be a better person out in the world and not commit crime any more if you don't also give them spaces where they can go out and be that.
"By universities and prisons working together, universities become communities to which people in prison are already connected and post release feel welcome, like there's a space in the lawful world where they are wanted."
University of Canberra's head of the School of Law and Justice Dr Lorana Bartels hoped that the program could one day take root in Canberra.
"I understand there are logistical and operational issues that would need to be worked through but there's no reason why we couldn't have this here in Canberra," Dr Bartels said.
"The benefits are manyfold. For the prisoners it gives them an opportunity to aspire to something significant in terms of further education.
"From the university's perspective, universities should be educating people from all walks of life, whatever their background and so providing that opportunity for people to study while they're in prison is important."
