About the Journal

Executive Summary

The International Journal for Creativity Inside (IJCI) is a not-for-profit, open-access journal dedicated to exploring and promoting the role of creativity in prisons and jails worldwide through a cross-disciplinary perspective. Its mission, in brief, is to highlight, support, and expand the value of creativity within carceral systems to people in prison and to society. Toward this end, IJCI will advance knowledge and public discourse on the role of creativity in carceral institutions globally by publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarly research and practice-based explorations along with curated, insightful perspectives, creative work, and book reviews related to artistic, literary, and other creative endeavors within carceral settings. IJCI will be freely available online, and its operations will be sustained through volunteer editors.

Target Audience

“Creativity inside” is operationalized as arts-in-corrections (AIC) (Whitman, in progress):[1]

AIC can be any educational or vocational training and learning aimed to build creative skills among incarcerated residents resulting in products of artistic expression in a tangible form such as paper, film, and sculpture, eligible for copyright protection by the U.S. Copyright Office.[2] The arts are broadly construed to include writing in its manifold forms; visual arts in various media; music, including composition and performance; drama, including playwriting and performance; choreography; and other expressive skills. Such skills may be self-taught, taught by other residents, or taught by volunteer or professional artists from the community working individually or under the auspices of an organization authorized by the correctional facility.

The journal aims to encourage cross-disciplinary discourse focusing on creativity in the carceral system. The heterogeneous target audience for IJCI spans educators, practitioners, librarians, clinicians, evaluators, students, and administrators (corrections professionals) delivering, evaluating, or supporting arts-in-corrections programs worldwide. Additional audiences include policymakers, judges, probation officers, community members, others affected by the judicial system and its outcomes, and the general public. Submissions by collaborations between people outside and inside, as well as between practitioners and outcomes evaluators, are encouraged.

Subject matter may include programs that address creativity and the well-being of formerly incarcerated people beyond release from prison.

Submissions from Prison

Mail sent from prison may be directed to:

Dr. David Gussak

Florida State University-Dept of Art Ed

3029 WJB/143 Honors Way

Tallahassee FL 32306-1232

Objectives

  1. Foster an international, multidisciplinary dialogue among researchers, artists, clinicians, librarians, judges, lawyers, correctional professionals, incarcerated individuals through three years after release, practitioners, and members of the community.
  2. Promote arts-in-corrections and collateral educational programs worldwide, including re-entry and poverty reduction, that together contribute to the life skills, dignity, spirituality, and access to resources needed after prison to desist from crime.
  3. Raise awareness of and protect the intellectual property of creators in prisons.
  4. Support efforts to increase the quality of expressive works created in prisons.
  5. Promote public display of and access to expressive works created in prisons.
  6. Achieve lasting positive outcomes for incarcerated people during and following release, for the administration of carceral facilities, and for society.

Language Policy

Submissions, calls for papers, and communications will be conducted in English due to limited resources. International contributors are encouraged to submit in English for consistency and accessibility.

Global Consortium for Creativity Inside

The Global Consortium for Creativity Inside, sponsored by the International Journal for Creativity Inside, is a voluntary alliance of universities, nonprofit organizations, and corporations that support the arts in carceral spaces. Members of the Consortium are encouraged to support arts-in-corrections educational programs, creative practice in prisons, and dissemination of creative work for public benefit, with acknowledgement to the creators and the correctional facilities that encourage such innovation. The journal acknowledges Consortium members on its website.

By joining this Consortium, which is free of charge and does not incur any obligations, the entity agrees to publishing its name as a Consortium member in the International Journal for Creativity Inside. To join, please send an email to John R. Whitman, johnrwhitman@mac.com.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish in IJCI agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons 4.0 International License (CC 4.0). This license allows anyone to copy and distribute the article provided that appropriate attribution is given. For details of the rights an author grants users of their work, please see the license summary and the full license. 

Notes

[1] Creativity here focuses on expressive works protected by copyright; however, creativity also includes works eligible for patent protection, utilitarian inventions more likely to emerge from laboratories like maker spaces, largely absent in carceral facilities.

[2] See “What does copyright protect?”: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html, cited 8 February 2025.