He grew up in what he described as a broken family.

Despite craving stability, Matt was forced to move around constantly.

He eventually found himself in West Dubbo, which at the time was one of the most crime-riddled areas in the state.

He got mixed up with drugs and was in and out of juvenile centres, and then prisons, lasting just a few months at a time before finding himself back on the inside.  

Being imprisoned is often considered to be a soul-crushing experience, one which those of us on the outside will never truly understand.

But a local writing program is making a remarkable push to flip that narrative on its head.

The Dreaming Inside project, which is run by Indigenous authors from the Wollongong-based South Coast Writers Centre, encourages Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inmates at the Junee Correctional Centre to express themselves through written word.

It has produced a series of books consisting of the inmates’ work, Dreaming Inside: Voices from Junee Correctional Centre, and the fourth volume was launched at the Sydney Writer’s Festival this year.

The volumes comprise of heart-felt poems and stories on a range of thought-provoking topics such as inmates’ families, life in prison and being disconnected from culture and the community.

The program has already had a tremendous impact on the lives of its participants.

Just ask Matt.

“When you compare what I wrote in last year’s edition after I’d just got here and having been on drugs, to the things I wrote this year, it was just so different.

“I could tell straight away from what I’d written how different I’d become as a person throughout everything.”

Perhaps the most encouraging sign for the program is its significant increase in numbers.

It began with just nine participants after Illawarra author Aunty Barbara Nicholson established the project in 2012, along with fellow mentors from the South Coast Writers Centre. 

It now has 35.

“We used to have morning and afternoon sessions and we’d have people come in the morning, but we wouldn’t see them again in the afternoon,” Dreaming Inside mentor John Muk Muk Burke said.

“But now they’re really keen to come back, so all the indications are that it’s having a very positive effect.

“Elsewhere, it has been a bit tricky to get people to come and do something which is labeled ‘educational’, but that hasn’t been the case here at all.”

The writing sessions pay no attention to spelling and grammar, shifting the focus from literacy skills to literary skills.

Instead, mentors encourage participants to articulate their thoughts in their own way, a method which produces raw and powerful results. 

This striking form of writing is indicative of a distinct level of talent which has long been bubbling below the surface for many inmates.

All they needed to realise their untapped abilities was the encouragement and nurturing that Dreaming Inside provides.

“I’ve found Indigenous people often have the most tremendous talents,” Mr Burke said.

“Especially in the creative arts, there’s just this natural ability there.

“I often find the guys here are multi-talented, whether it's painting, singing, playing guitar, writing stories or telling stories.”

All of this creative expression takes place inside the prison’s cultural centre.

The centre is an explosion of colour and life in the form of a staggeringly vast indoor area with high ceilings and inmate artwork sprawling as far as the eye can see.

Such is the impressive nature of the centre that one prison employee noted he’d made a point of being present whenever new visitors arrived, purely to see their reaction.

It’s a cultural hub where inmates are encouraged to express themselves and connect with their culture.

Inside, the energy in the air is palpable, and that electric sense of positivity is contagious.

“Some days you’ll see a bunch of the boys pull the guitar out, while others will be sitting over there singing, and there’ll be another group of boys writing, everyone gets involved,” Matt said.

“You can see it in their face, they’re joyful and just happy.

“This place brings the best out of you, and it makes you proud as a writer or an artist to have you work displayed here.”

Anyone with a pulse would be prone to having bursts of inspiration in an environment like this.

It’s an centre and a program which provides a tremendous boost for the participants’ self-esteem and sense of identity.

It gives people, whose lifelong identity has been intertwined with being a prisoner, a true identity.

“I’ve got six kids and I can’t think of anything better to say to them than ‘your dad is a published author’,” Matt said.

These are no prisoners.

They’re authors now.

It’s worth noting the swelling sense of pride tied to the project extends well beyond its participants, as the prison’s cultural advisor Jerome Brodin can attest. 

“You can either go to bed each night thinking ‘Yeah, I did my job today’, or you can go home and say ‘I’m proud to be a part of that because it will live on forever’,” he said. 

“I’m sure it's the same for journalists, when you’re 60-years-old after a life of finding stories and interviewing people, there’ll be half a dozen stories where you’ll say, ‘I’m glad I did that one, that’s one that’ll stick with me’.

“That’s what we’re trying to achieve here.”

By filling its participants with self-worth and pride, the program strikes at the core of the concept of genuine rehabilitation.

It’s also a strong suggestion that in this case, the term ‘correctional centre’ isn’t merely a meaningless term dreamed up by PR types.

Instead, it’s the home of powerful cultural change which will continue to spread throughout the Correctional Centre. 

At this stage it’s impossible to measure the long-term effects of the project on the inmates, as it has only been running for five years.

But perhaps the most encouraging sign working in favour of the project is that the inmates keep coming back.

Last year, Indigenous prisoners accounted for just over a quarter of the total Australian prison population, despite the total Indigenous population aged 18 years and over accounting for approximately two per cent of the national population. 

But this program is about focusing on the positives, and taking baby steps in the right direction. 

Speak to one of the prisoners involved and you’ll be left with little doubt that it’s working. 

This is just the start of a remarkable movement which will change not just the lives of Junee’s inmates, but set a positive cycle in motion for generations to come.

*Full name not used for privacy reasons.