Prison Service Journal - Centre for Crime and Justice Studies · 2014. 7. 7. · Prison Service...

This edition includes:

Chapter and Verse: The Role of Creating Writing inReducing Re-offending

Michael Crowley

Talking Justice: Building vocal public support forprison reform

Katy Swaine Williams and Janet Crowe

Repression and Revolution: Representations of CriminalJustice and Prisons in Recent Documentaries

Dr Jamie Bennett

How the public sphere was privatized and whycivil society could reclaim it.

Mary S Corcoran

P R I S O N S E R V I C E

OURNALJP R I S O N S E R V I C EP R I S O N S E R V I C E

OOUURRNNALALJJ

Special Edition

The Prison and the Public

July 2014 No 214

Prison Service JournalIssue 214Issue 214Prison Service Journal

Purpose and editorial arrangements

The Prison Service Journal is a peer reviewed journal published by HM Prison Service of England and Wales.

Its purpose is to promote discussion on issues related to the work of the Prison Service, the wider criminal justice

system and associated fields. It aims to present reliable information and a range of views about these issues.

The editor is responsible for the style and content of each edition, and for managing production and the

Journal’s budget. The editor is supported by an editorial board — a body of volunteers all of whom have worked

for the Prison Service in various capacities. The editorial board considers all articles submitted and decides the out-

line and composition of each edition, although the editor retains an over-riding discretion in deciding which arti-

cles are published and their precise length and language.

From May 2011 each edition is available electronically from the website of the Centre for Crimeand Justice Studies. This is available at http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/psj.html

Circulation of editions and submission of articles

Six editions of the Journal, printed at HMP Leyhill, are published each year with a circulation of approximately

6,500 per edition. The editor welcomes articles which should be up to c.4,000 words and submitted by email to

[email protected] or as hard copy and on disk to Prison Service Journal, c/o Print Shop Manager,

HMP Leyhill, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, GL12 8HL. All other correspondence may also be sent to the

Editor at this address or to [email protected].

Footnotes are preferred to endnotes, which must be kept to a minimum. All articles are subject to peer

review and may be altered in accordance with house style. No payments are made for articles.

Subscriptions

The Journal is distributed to every Prison Service establishment in England and Wales. Individual members of

staff need not subscribe and can obtain free copies from their establishment. Subscriptions are invited from other

individuals and bodies outside the Prison Service at the following rates, which include postage:

United Kingdom

single copy £7.00

one year’s subscription £40.00 (organisations or individuals in their professional capacity)

£35.00 (private individuals)

Overseas

single copy £10.00



Orders for subscriptions (and back copies which are charged at the single copy rate) should be sent with a

cheque made payable to ‘HM Prison Service’ to Prison Service Journal, c/o Print Shop Manager, HMP Leyhill,

Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, GL12 8BT.

Contents

4

10

17

Review of ‘The Prison and the Public’ ConferenceEdge Hill University, Wednesday 27 March 2013Holly White, Lindsey Ryan, Chris Wadsworth andPhil Williams

Holly White, Lindsey Ryan, ChrisWadsworth and Phil Williams(Edge Hill University).

Editorial Comment: The Prison and the PublicDr Alana Barton and Dr Alyson Brown

2Dr Alana Barton is a Senior Lecturerin Criminology and Criminal Justice atEdge Hill University and Dr AlysonBrown is a Reader in History at EdgeHill University.

Michael Crowley was Writer inResidence HM YOI Lancaster Farms(2007-2013) and is author of Behindthe Lines: creative writing withoffenders and those at risk (WatersidePress, 2012).

Free to Write: A Case Study in the Impact of CulturalHistory Research and Creative Writing PracticeDr Tamsin Spargo and Hannah Priest

Dr Tamsin Spargo and HannahPriest Liverpool John MooresUniversity.

Katy Swaine Williams led the PrisonReform Trust’s outreach programmefrom 2011 to December 2013,supported by the Monument Trustand aimed at bringing prison reformto a wider audience, inspiring andsupporting others to take action.Janet Crowe is deputy director at thePrison Reform Trust and has ongoingresponsibility for the charity’s workwith the public.

Chapter and Verse: The Role of Creating Writing inReducing Re-offendingMichael Crowley

22 Talking Justice: Building vocal public support forprison reformKaty Swaine Williams and Janet Crowe

Rachel Forster University of Leedsand Liz Knight Leeds Museum andDiscovery Centre.

28 Challenging Perceptions: Considering the Value ofPublic OpinionRachel Forster and Liz Knight

Paul AddicottHMP HighdownDr Rachel Bell

HM & YOI HollowayMaggie Bolger

Prison Service College, Newbold RevelDr Alyson BrownEdge Hill UniversityDr Ben Crewe

University of CambridgePaul CrosseyHMYOI FelthamDr Sacha Darke

University of Westminster Dr Michael Fiddler

University of Greenwich

Steve HallSERCO

Dr Karen HarrisonUniversity of Hull (Reviews Editor)Professor Yvonne JewkesUniversity of LeicesterDr Helen JohnstonUniversity of HullMartin Kettle

Church of EnglandDr Victoria Knight

De Montford UniversityMonica Lloyd

University of Birmingham

Alan LongwellNorthern Ireland Prison Service

William PayneBusiness Development Group

Dr David ScottLiverpool John Moores University

Christopher StaceyUnlock

Ray TaylorNOMS HQ

Mike WheatleyDirectorate of Commissioning

Kim WorkmanRethinking Crime and Punishment, NZRay Hazzard and Steve Williams

HMP Leyhill

Editorial BoardDr Jamie Bennett (Editor)

Governor HMP Grendon & Springhill

The Editorial Board wishes to make clear that the views expressed by contributors are their own and donot necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the Prison Service.Printed at HMP Leyhill on 115 gsm Satimat 15% Recycled SilkSet in 10 on 13 pt Frutiger LightCirculation approx 6,000ISSN 0300-3558„ Crown Copyright 2014

July 2014

1Issue 214 Prison Service Journal

45 Robin Baillie, Senior Outreach Officer,National Galleries of Scotland.

Artist or Offender?: Braving the Mirror Robin Baillie

58 Film reviewEveryday (2012)Dr Jamie Bennett

Cover: Headless, HMP YOI Polmont,2010, copyright NGS, Fraser Gray andMotherwell College 2010.

Mary S Corcoran is a Lecturer inCriminology at Keele University.

39 How the public sphere was privatized and whycivil society could reclaim it.Mary S Corcoran

Dr Jamie Bennett is Governor ofHMP Grendon and Springhill.

33 Repression and Revolution: Representations ofCriminal Justice and Prisons in RecentDocumentaries Dr Jamie Bennett

52 Gill Buck is a PhD student at theSchool of Sociology and Criminologyat Keele University.

Civic re-engagements amongst former prisonersGill Buck

Book ReviewCritique and dissent: An anthology to mark 40years of the European Group for the Study ofDeviance and Social Control

Rethinking social exclusion: The end of the social?

Criminal justice and neoliberalism

Why prison?

Dr Jamie Bennett

59

Prison Service Journal2 Issue 214

In one sense ‘public’ is a wonderfully flexibleword, associated with a rather amorphous,unspecific yet all-embracing body of humanity.The word is democratic and can be usedinterchangeably with other seeminglyunrestricted terms like ‘the people’, ‘citizens’,‘society’, ‘community’ or even ‘the nation’. Yet inmany ways the concept of the ‘public’ is notneutral. It is a politically loaded label. Even if it isnot always made explicit, the term ‘the public’often refers to very specific parts of the whole,implying the inclusion of certain groups and theexclusion of others.

Because of its leading connotations, ‘public’ is aword that can be used to give force or legitimacy tostatements or actions which otherwise would not haveit. It can be used as a weapon to convince or persuade.For example ‘public’ or ‘popular support’ is a phraseoften to be found in conjunction with justifications forpunitive measures against offenders or other‘outsiders’, to the point where, amongst criticalcommentators at least, the terms ‘popular’ or ‘populist’have gained derogatory associations.

In recent years the concept of the ‘public’ hasbecome even more ambiguous through developmentsin forms of new media and social networking. Online,‘the public’ becomes more unpredictable, ever moreintangible, even harder to locate and identify. In onesense, this could represent a form of subversion of theexclusionary nature of the ‘public’ as it provides a voiceto a genuinely wider populace and could therefore beused to challenge, resist or threaten dominant values.1

Alternatively it could be a vehicle through which tocastigate, marginalise and exclude on an even widerscale.2

The term ‘prison’ on the other hand is a far lessnebulous concept. It is solid, extant, persistent and,importantly, written into architectural form. The ‘public’know that form and have an understanding of itsparameters and underpinning philosophies. Yet ‘public’understandings of this institution are not necessarily

accurate and may be shaped more by powerful(mediated) symbolism than actual experience. Forexample, in architectural terms, the prison form thepublic are most familiar with largely relates to theVictorian monolithic radial structure which, althoughstill present on the penal landscape, has beensuperseded by newer, less architecturally ascetic formsof prison buildings. But these latter structures do notcapture the imagination to the same extent. Likewise,in terms of the purpose of imprisonment and thetreatment of offenders, public or popular perceptionsappear to be strongly influenced by political rhetoricand media representations and to be largely punitive.3

Despite its conceptual vagueness, when theconcept of ‘the public’ is used in relation to the prison,a clear demarcation is made: the included public (the‘respectable’, the taxpayer, the ‘law abiding’, the ‘hardworking’) are very easily distinguished from the exiled‘others’ (the criminal, the inadequate, the anti-socialoutsiders). This conceptual segregation is compoundedby the fact that the definition of ‘public’ also denotesthat which is open, transparent, expansive andunlimited, clearly the antithesis of the hidden,constrained and exclusionary prison environment.

This is the second of two special editions of thePrison Service Journal focused around the segregatedrelationship between the ‘prison and the public’. Thefirst of these aimed to investigate how the public mightbecome more connected to and informed about therealities of prison life, past and present.4 Presenting thework of those who had conducted research into theprison, the focus was on exposing the world of theprison to members of the public via methods such asdigital archives, archaeology, prison museums andheritage sites.

In this edition we take a different approach to thenotion of the prison and the public relationship. Ratherthan looking ‘inwards’, focusing on how the publicmight be brought into the world of the prison, theintention here is to look ‘outwards’ and examine thework undertaken within the prison, in order to

1 . See Taki & Coretti (Eds, 2013) Westminster Papers In Communication and Culture, Vol 9, No.2.https://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/220675/WPCC-vol9-issue2.pdf

2. Solove, D.J. (2007) The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, Yale: Yale University Press.3. See Mason, P (Ed, 2006) Captured by the Media: Prison Discourse in Popular Culture, Cullompton, Willan; Monteresso, S (2009)

‘Punitive Criminal Justice Policy in Contemporary Society’, QUT Law Review, Vol 9, No 1, https://lr.law.qut.edu.au/article/view/39 ;Harper, C. & Treadwell, J. (2013) ‘Punitive Payne, Justice Campaigns and Popular Punitivism: Where next for public criminology?’,Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol 52, No.2: p216-222.

4. Prison Service Journal, No 210, November 2013.

Editorial Comment

The Prison and the PublicDr Alana Barton is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Edge Hill University and Dr Alyson

Brown is a Reader in History at Edge Hill University.

Prison Service JournalIssue 214 3

integrate (ideologically, politically and materially) thosecitizens who are incarcerated and those who are not.

To achieve this, the articles that follow willchallenge the separation of the prison/prisoner and thepublic on a variety of levels. The concept of ‘the public’is critiqued, particularly its definition and managementin neo-liberal society which undermines the trueinterests of citizenship (Corcoran). The ways in whichthe ‘public’ are informed (or misinformed) aboutprisons and prisoners via mediated channels, the impactthis has on (punitive) perceptions and the ways in whichmisleading representations can be challenged, is alsoexamined (Bennett, Swaine Williams and Crowe). Theuse of the arts in prison as a means of encouraging self-expression and as a form of rehabilitation for prisoners,but also as a method of forging connections andconstructive relationships with the non-incarceratedpublic, is discussed in several papers (Baillie, Crowley,

Forster, Spargo and Priest). Finally, the ways in whichprisoners themselves directly reach out to or connectwith the ‘public’ is addressed. For some prisoners,forging a dialogue with the state and social worldoutside of the prison is part of a broader politicalstruggle (Rossi). But for other prisoners/formerprisoners, the divide between ‘prisoner’ and ‘public’ is achasm difficult to traverse and thus the transition fromone perceived state to the other is fraught withdifficulties (Buck).

This notion of elucidating and restoring therelationship between the ‘excluded’ prisoner and the‘included’ public was the theme of a conference,entitled The Prison and the Public, organised by theeditors of this edition and held at Edge Hill University inMarch 2013. The contributions to this edition aredrawn from that conference and what follows is areview of the full event.


‘The Prison and the Public’ was a one-dayconference held at Edge Hill University and co-organised by the Department of History andEnglish and the Department of Law andCriminology. The over-arching theme of theconference was the relationship, primarily one ofseparation, between the prison and ‘the public’.Delegates included a range of academics, criminaljustice practitioners, museum professionals,creative writers and artists and their papersprovided criminological, historical and culturalanalyses of the prison in terms of its connection toa broader ‘public’. This paper will provide anoverview of the papers presented in the two-keynote sessions and the eight panels that formedthe conference.

Representations and Reality: Prisons from theInside and Outside — Jamie Bennett

Jamie Bennett, Governor of HMP Grendon andSpringhill, Research Associate at the University ofOxford, and Editor of the Prison Service Journalpresented the opening keynote address. In his paperBennett examined the representation and perception ofprison life. He argued that many media depictions aredevoid of social context and thus perpetuate a sense ofpunitivism by presenting the contemporary prison asviolent and full of dangerous ‘others’, yet the regimesas ‘too soft’. Using a range of examples, including ITV’sdocumentary ‘HMP Aylesbury’ (2013), Bennett arguedthat television documentaries presented a largelydecontextualized representation, which served toperpetuate problematic stereotypes endorsed by thepublic. Bennett argued that as the prison is strugglingfor legitimacy, ‘its failure is its ultimate success’.

In contrast to negative media representations,Bennett discussed the positive media representation ofHMP Grendon. Grendon is unique because of itsrelationship with the public. The prison holds socialdays when members of the public (including students,MPs, practitioners and celebrities) are able to interactwith ‘the prison’. Furthermore, Bennett stated thatGrendon stands out from the rest of the prison system,because it is concerned with the prisoner’s quality oflife and supports therapeutic work that reduces

reoffending on release. Therefore the assumptions thatunderpin the media representation of Grendon are thatit is a model to be replicated and that prisoners canchange if they are treated in a therapeutic environment.He stated that such factual stories of ‘redemption’challenge public preconceptions. However he went onto problematize this representation, particularlybecause it ignores the fundamental challenges with thewider prison system and instead suggests that minorchanges can ‘fix’ what are deep-seated problems. UsingGrendon as a ‘role model’ is problematic, he stated,because Grendon is an exception. Additionally, the menat Grendon have specifically volunteered for therapythus the assumption that the approach can be rolledout to other prisons is unrealistic. ‘Positive’ mediarepresentations of prisoner reform as a matter ofindividual choice and agency ignore wider structuralcontexts of race and poverty.

Factual and Fictional Representations ofNineteenth-Century Punishment

The three presentations delivered in this panelexamined the impacts of various factual and fictionalrecords of the nineteenth-century criminal justicesystem, specifically in relation to deterrence andportrayals of similarities between the prison and ‘theoutside’. Despite clear differences in content, thepapers revealed similar themes, in particular thedeterrence of crime, contemporary attitudes towardscriminality and the shaping of penal policy.

John Wallis, of Liverpool Hope University,presented his paper titled ‘Dying Guilty and Penitent:The ‘Lesson of the Scaffold’ in the Norfolk Chronicle,1800-1867’. Wallis examined the media coverage ofexecutions and the testimonies of the accused. Hefocused specifically on examples of testimonies fromprisoners who showed remorse for their actions,admitted their own ‘wickedness’ and demonstrated thebelief that they deserved to die. He argued that thevisual spectacle of public executions, accompanied withthe apparent regret of the condemned individual, wereconsidered important means of deterrence.

Lindsey Ryan of Edge Hill University presented herpaper titled ‘The Public and the Preston House ofCorrection in the 19th Century’. The paper examined

Review of ‘The Prison and the Public’Conference

Edge Hill University, Wednesday 27 March 2013Holly White, Lindsey Ryan, Chris Wadsworth and Phil Williams are based at Edge Hill University.


Preston prison reports and the work of prison chaplainJohn Clay, specifically focusing on the contemporaryconcerns about the treatment of prisoners and how theprison evolved as a result of these reports. Ryan arguedthat prison reports aimed to influence policy and publicperception. The prevailing theme was that the publichad a distorted image of prison, with somecommentators believing that prison life was too lenientand therefore not something to be feared. However thereports highlighted the use of hard labour punishments,such as the treadwheel (used for pressing flour) andalso discussed the social context of contemporarycriminal behaviour, such as alcoholism and lack ofeducation.

In the third paper of thepanel, titled Freedom, the FemaleBody and the Fictions of SarahWaters: Neo-VictorianIncarceration, Mari Hughes-Edwards, of Edge Hill University,examined Waters’ fictional workAffinity (1999) and explored theneo-Victorian form question ofpast and present. Hughes-Edwards discussed thesignificance of Millbank Prison,the largest prison in Londonduring the nineteenth-century, asthe setting for Affinity,particularly how it represented asymbol of surveillance, withinand outside the walls of theprison. Using a Foucauldiananalysis, it was argued that thefemale characters of the bookwere confined and oppressed byVictorian society and culture to such an extent thatleaving Millbank only represented the substitution ofone prison for another (ie. the outside world). Theprison and the outside world act as a means of bothphysical and psychological incarceration, reflecting theimpact of patriarchy on women in Victorian England.However, Hughes-Edwards argued that Waterssimultaneously offers a glimpse of freedom in the formof same sex desire.

‘Creative Arts and the Prison I’

The panel consisted of Robin Baillie, a senioroutreach officer from the National Galleries of Scotland,Hannah Priest, a researcher at Liverpool John MooresUniversity and the writer in residence at HM YOILancaster Farms, Michael Crowley. The panel examineddifferent forms of creative art as methods for offenderrehabilitation. Each panellist discussed aspects of thework they had undertaken and the effects of the work

on offenders. The speakers shared concerns about thelack of ‘public’ support for offender rehabilitation.

Baillie conducts an outreach programme at HMPShotts, Scotland, which aims to rehabilitate prisonersthrough art. During the programme prisoners areencouraged to paint self-portraits. In his paper ‘Artist orOffender?’ Braving the Mirror’, Baillie reflected thatprisoners often produced negative portrayals inaccordance with their understandings of society’sperception of them. Furthermore he explained thatprisoners were concerned about society’s negativeperception of rehabilitation. Baillie stated that someoffenders were reluctant to create art for the NationalGallery, as they feared being further ‘monstered’ and

criticised by the media. His paperdemonstrated that prisoners’ fearswere legitimate as the mediaquestioned the project’s fundingand portrayed it as a ‘lesson ingraffiti’. However, despite mediacriticism and prisoners concerns,Baillie argued that the artproduced on the programmepositively changed publicperception and represented ameans by which to connectprisoners with ‘the public’.

Hannah Priest, of JohnMoores University, presented apaper (co-authored by TamsinSpargo) titled ‘Free to Write: ACase Study in the Impact ofCultural History Research andCreative Writing Practice’. Theyanalysed the use of creativewriting within the prison as a

means to reform offenders, provide a commentary onthe prison system and ‘re-humanise’ offenders in theeyes of ‘the public’. Taking a historical perspective, theyfocused on the Star of Hope prisoner forum, a platformfor prisoner writings published from 1899 to 1917.However strict editorial policies meant writings werenot published if they were critical of the prison regimeor if they portrayed prisoners as dangerous, thus therepresentation of the prison was limited. The panellistssuggested that throughout the twentieth century,writing and arts became more accepted asrehabilitation. They concluded their paper afterdiscussing a contemporary creative writing project titled‘Free to Write’, which began in 2004 and aims toreduce recidivism and improve ‘the public’s’ perceptionof punishment and rehabilitation.

‘The Prison, the Public and the Arts’ was the title ofMichael Crowley’s paper. As part of his role at HM YOILancaster Farms, Crowley encourages offenders topaint, write stories and create poetry as mechanisms of

The prevailingtheme was that the

public had adistorted image ofprison, with somecommentators

believing that prisonlife was too lenientand therefore not

something tobe feared.


reflection. He suggested that creative writing istherapeutic, self-expressive and a means ofencouraging self-awareness. He suggested the public’sperception of young offenders was inaccurate and thatyoung offenders were concerned with publicperceptions. Crowley strongly advocated the use of artfor rehabilitation because he believed it was a platformfor offenders to communicate their true stories, feelingsand understandings. Moreover he stated that theproject improved attendance at Young OffenderInstitution and probation meetings. However he wasconcerned that the project’s funding will cease becauseall other rehabilitation at Lancaster Farms has beenremoved.

How the prison system fails and misleads thepublic — Eric Allison

Eric Allison, prisonscorrespondent for the GuardianNewspaper, a former prisonerand a trustee of the ShannonTrust, a project that promotesliteracy amongst prisoners,provided the second keynote ofthe conference. His paperprovided a thought provokingand insightful analysis of some ofthe failings of the prison,successfully refuting MichaelHoward’s 1993 claim that ‘prisonworks’.

To illustrate his argument,Allison drew a comparisonbetween the prison system and the National HealthService. He stated that if 60 per cent of patients left thehealth system more ill than when they entered it, itwould not be seen as effective. However, despite highrecidivism rates, the prison system is portrayed as‘working’. Drawing further comparisons he argued thatif a doctor prescribed all patients the same treatment itwould not cure or respond to the patients’ individualproblems. Similarly the blanket treatment provided bythe prison system does not respond to offenders’needs. He criticised ‘warehouse prisons’ and advocatedthat prisoners be treated as individuals in smaller unitswhere rehabilitation could be tailored towards theneeds of the individual. He demonstrated that theprison fails on many levels: it does not incapacitate(homicides are committed in prison, drugs are dealt andconspiracies are formed) or rehabilitate (recidivism ratesare high, particularly among those released from securetraining centres with four out of five reoffending).Drawing on his own experiences of custody he arguedthat prison had not deterred, incapacitated orrehabilitated him, rather it had taught him to commit

more harmful crimes. Allison concluded his paper byasking how prison could ever be considered to workwhen the basic premise of this form of punishment is sofundamentally flawed.

Diversity in the Prison Experience

Paul Gavin, a PhD student at Kingston University,presented the first paper of this panel. His paper, ‘TheIrish Prisoner Population in England and Wales’provided an interesting and thought provoking insightinto public and prisoner perceptions of Irish prisoners.According to Gavin, Irish Nationals are currently thethird highest of all foreign nationals within English andWelsh prisons, although he found some were not bornin Ireland but had an affinity to the Irish culture. Gavinfound high levels of prejudice and discrimination

towards foreign nationalsincluding Irish nationals, bothwithin and outside the prison. Hestated that as a result IrishNationals struggled to obtainwork and suitable housing, whichresulted in urban poverty and alack of engagement with ‘thepublic’. Gavin concluded thatdespite being the focus ofdiscrimination, Irish prisonersretained a strong nationalidentity.

The second paper of thepanel titled ‘Between Arms andBars: Debates, Oppositions andNew Dividing Lines Among

Radical Leftists in Prison at the Beginning of 1980s’ waspresented by Federica Rossi, a PhD student of Institutdes Sciences Sociales du Politique, Paris. The paperanalysed divisions between Italian radicals at the start ofthe 1980s, as a result of political prisoners exchanginginformation on other radicals, which lead to more than4000 arrests, for shorter sentences and lesserpunishments. Rossi examined prisoners’ use ofmembers of ‘the public’, such as journalists and socialscientists, as means to share their stories.

The Public, Prisoners and Civic (re) engagement

The three papers presented in this panel criticallyanalysed the political construction of a dichotomybetween prisoners and ‘the public’. The papers arguedthat the concept of ‘the public’ supports the ideologiesof the elite and excludes prisoners and formerprisoners. The panel comprised of three speakers fromthe School of Sociology and Criminology at KeeleUniversity: Mary Corcoran a lecturer, and PhD studentsAndrew Henley and Gill Buck.

He suggested thepublic’s perceptionof young offenderswas inaccurate and

that youngoffenders wereconcerned with

public perceptions.


The primary concerns of Corcoran’s paper titled‘Retrieving the Public from the Public Sphere’, were thepolitical construction and reshaping of ‘the publicsphere’ and the discourses used to support neoliberalpractices, specifically privatisation and the ‘contracting-out’ of state roles to charitable and for-profitorganisations. Corcoran critically analysed the conceptof ‘the public’ and the use of the term in political andpenal discourses to gain ‘public’ support for policiesthat exclude those that do not act in the interests ofthe elite, including offenders and prisoners. Maryargued that new right discourses created a caste systemwhere citizens that have ‘morals’ are at the ‘top’ andcriminalised persons, the‘depraved’, are at the ‘bottom’and are structurally disqualifiedfrom ‘the public’. For Corcoran,discourses portrayed offendersand former prisoners as having adenizen status, in order tolegitimise the ‘hollowing out’ ofcitizenship. The separation causes‘the public’ to support the state’sviolation of offenders’ andprisoners’ rights.

‘A False Dichotomy:Prisoners versus the Law AbidingPublic’, presented by AndrewHenley, was concerned with thediscursive division drawn, in themedia, parliamentary speechesand political discourses, betweenthe ‘law abiding’ and the ‘non-law abiding’. He stated that theseparation exacerbates socialinjustice and reproduces thepolitical construction that there isa law-abiding majority who arethreatened by a non-law abiding minority. Henleyargued the construction of a ‘law abiding public’ isfalse. He highlighted that a large portion of thepopulation could be described as ‘offenders’ becausecrime is committed routinely on a wide scale. However,despite the fact that offenders can be victims and viceversa, the categories of the law abiding and offendersare presented as mutually exclusive. Henley stated thatpolitical discourses are used to strategically positioncitizens in different categories and are thus tools ofpunitive populism. They present politicians as protectorsof the rights of the ‘law abiding’ in order to ‘legitimise’and gain support for the violation of the rights of the‘non-law abiding’.

Gill Buck presented a paper titled ‘Civic Re-Engagements Amongst Former Prisoners’, which drewon data collected from interviews with ex-offender peermentors and demonstrated the problematic

segregation of the prison and ‘the public’. Buck statedformer prisoners struggle to make the transition fromprisoner to member of the public, particularly in termsof employment and education, but additionally withregard to social inclusion and restorative opportunities.Buck supported the use of former prisoners as peermentors and raised considerations about viewingformer prisoners as ‘experts’ with ‘privilegedknowledge’.

Prison reform past and present

In her paper ‘Talking Justice: Harnessing PublicSupport for Prison Reform’, KatySwaine Williams, Head ofOutreach at the Prison ReformTrust (PRT), presented the aimsand objectives of theorganisation, and particularlyfocussed upon its aim to liaisewith ‘the public’ to alter theperception of prisons and thenature of offending. PRT strivesto reach a wider audience, and toengage, inform, inspire, andequip the public with the facts ofprison life. Research intoreoffending has revealed that 47per cent of the people whoreoffend have no qualifications.Crucially then, Williams argues,the nature of reoffending is aproduct of individuals not beingproperly equipped with the skillsthey need on the outside world(prisons are punishing but notreforming). The PRT havepromoted their objectives via a

multitude of channels, such as newspaper and radioadvertisements. They have also bridged the gap withthe public by working with educational groups such asthe University of the Third Age (U3A) and deliveringpresentations at conferences.

Biographer Tessa West delivered a detailed aninformative abstract of her work on the life of JohnHoward in her paper ‘John Howard Prison Reformer’.Focusing on his early life West suggested thatwitnessing the poor conditions in which prisonerswere kept was the catalyst for Howard to start visitingprisons across the UK and Europe. As a result of hisexploratory work, Howard was commissioned by theHouse of Commons to compile a report on theconditions of prisons throughout the country. Despitehis interests in prisons, Howard did not have a clearopinion on crime. He was cautious about prison staffand emphasised the importance of them being

Mary argued thatnew right discourses

created a castesystem where

citizens that have‘morals’ are at the

‘top’ andcriminalised persons,the ‘depraved’, areat the ‘bottom’ and

are structurallydisqualified from

‘the public’.


‘morally upstanding’. West stressed the importance ofHoward’s work by outlining that his views influencedprison reforms after his death.

Bridging the Gap to the Public

The first paper of this session was titled ‘Bridgingthe Gap: Giving Public Voice to Prisoners and FormerPrisoners through Research Activism’. It was presentedby three academics from the Department of Social andHistorical Studies at the University of Westminster:Sacha Darke, Andy Aresti and David Manlow. The paperintroduced the growing British convict criminologymovement and its key features. The movement aims tochallenge the separationbetween ‘criminals’ and ‘experts’and prioritise the prisoner voiceas the ‘authentic’ ‘view frombelow’. It intends to achieve thisby: encouraging prisoners andformer prisoners to engage withacademic study by supportingformer prisoners to mentorcurrent prisoners and byconducting collaborative researchwith prisoners and formerprisoners. The overarching aim ofconvict criminology is tochallenge the separationbetween prisoners and ‘thepublic’, by facilitating theinvolvement of prisoners incriminology. However thespeakers highlighted theobstacles former prisoners face interms of conducting research,particularly denial of access to the prison.

Alana Barton and Alyson Brown, of Edge HillUniversity, presented the second paper of the session,titled ‘Prison Tourism: the Search for EthicalAuthenticity’. The paper focused on the history of‘prison tourism’, and issues of authenticity andrepresentation. The speakers stated that tourist interestin prisons is not a new phenomenon. Well-knownprisons like Dartmoor have always stirred curiosityamongst the public. But tourist interest raises particularissues. The speakers noted that potentially it could serveas an instrument of penal populism, which encouragesthe public to support severe punishment where ‘justiceis seen to be done’. Barton and Brown criticised thefocus that prison museums place on prisoner violence,such as riots, whilst silencing stories of prisoners asvictims of sexual violence, prison officer violence andself-harm. The speakers argued that dark tourism couldbe authentic and ethical if it was carried out in a waythat provides a political context and an understanding

of power while being sympathetic to those that havesuffered.

Creative Arts and the Prison II

The Creative Arts and the Prison II presented aseries of papers to reflect the innovative ways creativearts have been used to bring the prison to ‘the public’.The first paper, ‘Challenging Perceptions of Value’, waspresented by PhD student Rachel Forster from LeedsUniversity and Liz Knight from Leeds Museum andDiscovery Centre. Their study involved taking a numberof museum objects into the prison for the prisoners toappreciate and study. The aim was to encourage them

to reflect on the idea of value.Prisoners were reluctant to beinvolved initially, for fear of howthe other prisoners would reacttowards them. Although theyhad several challenges toovercome, the greatest hurdlewas the negative perceptions ofthose involved in the project.

Sue Pritchard, from theVictoria and Albert museum, inher paper ‘Creativity andConfinement: Narrating the HMPWandsworth Quilt’ discussed aproject where the museumworked with prisoners in HMPWandsworth. The projectinvolved the prisoners drawingon their experiences of prison todesign individual hexagonalfabric patches, which reflectedthe floor plan of the prison. The

patches were sewn together to make the WandsworthQuilt. Pritchard believed it was a positive experience forprisoners providing them with a sense of control overtheir selves and their environment, and feelings ofpurpose and pride. She suggested that the project hasreduced conflict amongst prisoners.

The final paper of the panel titled ‘Inside-Outside’Discussion of Prison Workshop and the Documentary‘Rasu g.6’, was presented by artist Anja Westerfroelke,and feminist activist M-Françoise Stewart-Ebel. Thepaper discussed art workshops for prisoners in an oldempty prison that had previously been a church inVilnius, Lithuania. Using artefacts from the old prison,the prisoners created art and used the site to develop ashared experience between the prison and ‘the public’.

The Contemporary Prison

This session analysed the representations of thecontemporary prison. The panel consisted of John

The overarching aimof convict

criminology is tochallenge the

separation betweenprisoners and ‘the

public’, byfacilitating theinvolvement ofprisoners incriminology.


Griffiths, from the Independence Initiative DrugRehabilitation Project in Liverpool, Ian Marsh, a principallecturer in Criminology at Liverpool Hope University andHelen O’Keefe, assistant head of Primary and EarlyYears Education at Edge Hill University. The threespeakers were concerned with the ways in whichportrayals of prisons inform ‘the public’ perspective,which in turn impact upon policies and practices.

John Griffiths’ paper was titled ‘Criminal Justiceand Drug Interactions: A Public-Private Affair’. Thepaper was concerned with the influence of the media,and lack of influence of research, on prison policy andreforms, in particular privatisation. Griffiths drew on theexample of the privatisation of probation to argue thatalthough research has demonstrated probationprovided by the private sector is less effective in termsof rehabilitation, the media has largely supported themovement and subsequently the public have notchallenged it. Griffiths argued that the governmentintentionally portray the prison negatively in order togain support for punitive and cost-cutting reforms.

In his paper titled ‘The Media Representation ofPrisons: Holiday Camps or Boot Camps?’ Ian Marshstated that the secrecy surrounding the prison meansthat the public’s main source of information aboutprison is the media. He suggested this was problematicbecause of the contradictory media portrayal of theprison as both a holiday camp and a dangerous, violentplace. He suggested that the media representationprevented positive reform and supported neoliberalinterests. Marsh supported Griffiths’ view that theprison system was represented negatively in order togain support for reforms that reduce costs.

Helen O’Keefe’s paper was titled ‘The Face ofPrison in Primary Schools — the Children of Male

Prisoners and their Schools’. This paper focussed onthe impact of prison portrayals on the treatment ofchildren with imprisoned parents. O’Keefe found thatsome schools literally denied having pupils withimprisoned parents whilst others did not know if theyhad any such pupils, and if they did, they rarely knewthe number of pupils concerned. O’Keefe found thatnationwide only two schools trained staff to respondto children and families with an imprisoned parentand many schools blamed poor resourcing for theirlack of knowledge and their failure to engage with theissue. O’Keefe concluded that the majority of schoolsfailed to support families with a parent in prison andthat such families feared stigmatisation anddiscrimination by the school.

To conclude, the conference amalgamated abroad scope of issues presented by academics,practitioners and artists concerned with the centraltheme of the relationship between the prison and ‘thepublic’. Papers explored the variety of means throughwhich the prison is connected to ‘the public’ but alsocritiqued the segregation of the two spheres. Manypapers championed the use of art as both a means ofrehabilitation and connection between the prison and‘the public’. A common concern of delegates was theway in which representation, mainly in the media, ofthe prison and prisoners is used as an instrument ofpunitive populism. This was connected to a critique ofmedia and political discourses that construct aseparation between ‘the public’ and the prison.Delegates appealed for the narratives of segregationto be challenged and support for initiatives thatensure greater connection between the ‘public’ andthe prison.


People benefit because it’s a way to unlockhidden emotion. It’s a way of beingunderstood. It’s a way to get out of this worldand into another where anything can happen.I’ve tried to write from a victim of crimeperspective, and the truth is, I’ve never thoughtlike this before. I’ve never even bothered aboutpeople I don’t know. I’ve always thought, if Idon’t know someone, why should I care?Writing from their perspective makes me thinkabout their lives.’

Michael, (Prisoner) HMYOI Lancaster Farms1

I was writer in residence at HM YOI Lancaster Farmsfor over six years; before that I worked in youth theatre,before that I was a youth justice worker in GreaterManchester for seven years, before that I worked in anopen YOI. This is an article about getting people incustody to write, and about writing with them and whatthat teaches us both. It is about how creative writing canbe used as a means not just for self-expression, improvedliteracy and concentration, but also for assessment, fordeveloping moral reasoning and empathy, for tacklingpro criminal thinking; as a means for a number ofinterventions and as an intervention itself.

That creative writing can play a part in the process ofdesistance I believe is now widely accepted in prisons andprobation.2 What is less well established is a closerscrutiny of the methods involved, the deliberatedevelopment of a practice of applied creative writing, anexamination of what works and what doesn’t.

You cannot be a writer and a thug. To describehow someone may be feeling in a situationshows you have empathy or an understandingof how actions affect other people, you aresensitive. I think writing really helps to makepeople more compassionate and thoughtful.

Jack, HMYOI Lancaster Farms

In my six years at Lancaster Farms I worked with alot of young male prisoners (lads) and produced a lot of

creative writinganthologies; memoir, fiction,poetry and book reviews. We also wrote short playstogether for stage and radio, performed them and eventook on a few scenes from Othello and Macbeth. Alwaysthere was an underlying moral purpose and if it wasn’texpressed in the writing or drama session, it was becauseI believed it was self-evident enough to occur to the ladsanyway. To be interested in a prisoner’s writing withoutany regard to how the process might change theirthinking and behaviour to me seems pointless. Thismeant discussing crimes, grave crimes in detail; writingand rewriting about them; the planning and motivation;the commission of the offence; the aftermath on allconcerned; their meaning. It is remarkable how littleopportunity or requirement there is upon prisoners todiscuss the significance of what they have done,particularly in a young offender institution. In myexperience writing or text based work is all too marginalin the rehabilitation of offenders. Whilst written workisn’t for everyone on community orders or in custody, itcan certainly be employed for more people than arecurrently engaged or have the opportunity to take part.Neither is it an occupation that merely indulges theperson who has satisfied themselves through crime. Itcan be a more exacting and detailed means of askingpeople to face up to what they have done, as well as ameans to spell out a path for the future.

1. All quotes of prisoners’ writing from Crowley, M. (2012) Behind the Lines: creative writing with offenders and those at risk Hampshire,Waterside Press.

2. See particularly Albertson, K. E (2014) ‘Realising the agency, empathy and reflexive capacities that contribute to desistance narratives’,The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, Special Edition: Arts in Prison (February 2014). Also Arts Alliance report Bilby C, Caulfield L,Ridley L 2012 Re imagining Futures: exploring arts interventions and the process of desistance www.artsalliance.org.

Chapter and Verse:The Role of Creating Writing in Reducing Re-offending

Michael Crowley was Writer in Residence HM YOI Lancaster Farms (2007-2013) and is author of Behind theLines: creative writing with offenders and those at risk (Waterside Press, 2012).


Tom’s LifeBy Tom

I laugh in the face of the policeI admit it. I’ve done wrong

Who gives a fuck about life?Keep your head up. There’s more to life. Just give ittime.

I will carry on doing what I’m doing now. You can get a job. It won’t be a good job. Working in a shoe factory or making socks. It’s a job.

I wish I was never bornLife gets better in time. Give it time. It gets better.

I run riot around this schoolEducation helps me out in life.

I live with my mum and that’s it. I don’t even respecther. I got two letters off her on Saturday.

My dad threw me across the roomHe won’t be able to do that now

I buzz off my area because we kick off every dayand fight every dayIt’s a bad area to grow up in. When I get out, I’mmoving away.

It is never difficult finding prisoners who want towrite. From the first morning I walked onto a wing(What do you do boss?) until my final day, I was neverable to meet all the requests or read all the workhanded to me. One or two inmates appeared to believethat writing was the purpose of their imprisonment.That doesn’t mean that the dominant ethic withinprison fosters or even tolerates individual expression.The job of the prisoner in a YOI is to be enduringly onguard from oneself. Lads are bullied for writing; somedemanded my confidence and some left their cells withmanuscripts tucked down their pants. Not surprisingly itwas the prisoners who were serving the most time thatwere the most open and productive. The troublethough, at least with much of the unsolicited prisonwriting, is that it tends to portray either sentimentalconversions or a reaffirmation of the code, thoughsome it has to be said is testament to a quarrying forsolutions.

That’s all I ever want off people: their car. Iappreciate cars. I understand them. I see thereason why every drop of sweat that has hit theground during the engineering of a car hasdone so. I love cars. The way they look, the way

they smell, the way they sound, the way theyfeel, the way they drive, even the way they hurtwhen they are abused. It’s almost as if they talkto me. I take care of them, look after them,drive them the way they like to be driven, washthem when they are dirty and sad, fix themwhen they are broke and mad. I canunderstand why people think I’m crazy. Theyare right, cars don’t have feelings, you can’tmake a car happy. What was I thinking? Somepeople call it an obsession, some people call itan illness. Most illnesses have a cure. I think theonly person who can cure this is me and I’m farfrom a doctor.

Michael, HMYOI Lancaster Farms

To help prisoners to write well and to writethoughtfully, we need not just rapport and discussion,but writing exercises. Tailor made tools to initiate and todevelop writing. Tom’s Life is a response to an exerciseLetters to Myself. I began developing exercises when Iwas a YOT officer and continued when I was working intheatre. I hoarded them whilst working at LancasterFarms. I will often begin with someone with a warm upexercise such as Today My Hand3 and Once My Hand,which requires people to think about five physical actionsfrom the present and the past.

Today my hand turned on the TV, made mybed, wrote an exam. It did these things inprison, for stealing from cars. In the future myhand will cook for my family, will work andclean and write.

Liam, HMYOI Lancaster Farms

3. An exercise adapted from playwright Noel Greig. See Greig, Noel (2005) Playwriting a practical guide London, Routledge.

Today My Hand

• Draw�around�a�hand.�In�each�finger�write�a�sentence

concerning�an�action;�ordinary�or�otherwise,

beginning�today my hand...

• Connect�a�feeling�and�a�thought�to�each�action.�It

may�be�an�unrelated�thought.

• Repeat�the�exercise�using�once my hand, one day my

hand will, another’s hand once...


It’s an exercise that exposes the limitations of life incustody. When applied to an offence, it centres on thephysical nature of what has been done; slows it down,cuts to the bone in Anglo Saxon English from out of thecover of abstract Latinate terms such as assault. It’s muchthe same with walking. The prison has a ‘regime’ and itincludes movement. Deviation in any direction is not anoption. Most lads cope with jail. Some cope a lot betterin jail than they do on The Out. Many argue that thingsare working out for them. They felt sorry for me on myresidency income — prison is fine and they would have afew years left in them yet. Listing the places they walk toand the tasks their hands perform is one way of passingthe penny that they might drop one day.4

Like most of the rest of us, most prisoners begin bywriting memoir. In the context of criminality this is at thesame time potentially both problematic and useful. Youcould be feeding an ego in desperate need of a diet, butalso beginning to put it in its place. Last year I decided toput together an anthology entitled Why Are You in Jail?When I began to ask the question, some inmates talkedabout the last offence, the failed appointments that ledto recall; others talked about domestic violence, parent’sdrug addiction, or parents dying and their memoirs oftencovered the surface of years. The choice of instrumentsuggested itself.

I am seven. I am very worried and confused. Ihaven’t been told why or where we are going.I know I am going to Wales on a train. Lookingacross at my mother her face is all bruised andlooking very upset and scared. My older

brother isn’t that bothered. I think he thinkswe’re just going on a holiday. I don’t think thisis a holiday. I am seven but I know some of thepieces. I know my mum is unhappy because mydad is a violent person and has been violent tomy mum and she’s scared and now she is soscared that we have to run away from theviolence. When we arrive in Bangor my mumgets a postcard and sends it to my auntie to lether know where we are. A couple of days latermy dad finds the post card and finds us. On theway back home me and my brother are in theback seat of the car and every time me or mybrother say something my dad yells ‘shut thefuck up.’

James, H M YOI Lancaster Farms

Conversely instead of starting from an event onemight begin memoir work by beginning with anemotion.

And with a new writer it will often take acombination of exercises to form the basis of a piece.

The two exercises above, as well as the Today myHand warm-up exercise formed the basis of a poem by alad.

Two Sides

I remember the royal blue seats and the deepbrown woodthe perfume of the woman who handcuffed mewhile I stoodin the court. My hands sweating.

I remember the rustle of paper above the silencethe taste of the tasteless tea, the ink leaking

4. The Body Self exercise has been adapted with kind permission from an exercise by poet and fellow writer in residence Pat Winslow.

Body Self Exercise

Draw�around�your�feet.�Let�one�foot�represent�the�past�and�the

other�the�present.�Write�down�the�places�you�have�been;�the

key�moments� that�have�weighed�each� foot�down�and�put�a

spring�in�its�step.

• What’s�made�the�foot�strong,�what’s�made�it�hurt?

• Draw�a�future�foot.�Fill�it�with�things�you�want�and�

believe�you�can�get.�How�will�that�foot�walk�in�five�

�years’�time?

Why Are You In Jail?

• Think�of�a�particular�day�connected�to�why�you�ended�

up�in�jail.�It�does�not�have�to�be�about�your�crime.

• Think�of�a�particular�hour�within�that�day.�A�time;�less�

than�an�hour.�Where�were�you,�who�else�was�there,�

what�was�happening?

• Imagine�you�are�back�there.�Write�what�is�happening�

in�the�present�tense.�Start�with�your�age.

Emotion into Memoir

• Write�a�list�of�seven�different�emotions.

• Choose�one.

• Think�of�a�time�when�it�was�dominant.

• When,�where,�who�was�there?�

Remembering the Senses

• Write�the�five�senses�down�the�side�of�the�paper.

• Write�a�response�to�each�of�the�senses,�as�in,�I

remember...

• I remember the colour of..., I remember the smell of..., I

don’t remember the sound of..., I remember the taste of...,

You will remember..., They will remember the sound of...


off the indictment onto my hands.

I don’t remember the judge’s speech after theverdict.I saw tears in the jury’s faces.They will remember me asking them why theywere cryingwhen they had just found us guilty.

You were going to sacrifice your freedom for meI told you not to. We will remember the smiles on the police officers’facesthe handshakes and the claps, after the verdict.

Today my hand turned on a television. It wanted something else to do. I felt bored.

Once it put money in a charity boxheld shopping for my mother, pulled a trigger.

Of course the title Two Sides is the wrong one. It’sonly one side and it doesn’t begin to look at why hewas in court in the first place. All the same I liked itssparseness and put it in the next anthology of prisoner’swriting. It convinced him he should be off the wing andin education: a start possibly. I’d met the lad oncebefore, when he was thirteen. He had been convictedof a burglary and I was trying to set up a restorativemeeting with the victim but it proved too risky. Sevenyears later he was beginning a long sentence for gangrelated crime. I met a lot of former YOT clients inLancaster Farms. Boys I knew at ten and eleven hadgrown into young men, grown into prison cells.

How can memoir work be rehabilitative?Fundamentally, ‘it is the placing of the person, not thetreatment or criminal justice professional, at the heart ofthe process.’5 Most of the lads I worked with had nevertaken the time to think through their backgrounds, theemotional topography of their lives. Helping them toarticulate what happened to them and what they haddone was empowering. Disempowerment, all corruptingpowerlessness, was always rearing its head in the prisonand in the journey to its gates.

I felt like the lowest of the low, the bottom ofthe pile. When I look back at what I’ve done Iregret doing it. It wasn’t just the bike. It was theanger inside of me. A lot of bad thingshappened to me as a kid. Violence. A lot ofcrime around me. I started joining in with itwhen I was eleven. It made me angry becauseI wanted a good upbringing. A normal one.With no violence. To live a good life like mymates had. I was jealous. I wanted what theyhad. I was jealous of everything. I need to makemy life a better life.

Darren, HM YOI Lancaster Farms

In writing a narrative about oneself you begin toput yourself at a distance, if you want anyone toread it, you have to plot a cause and effect to theevents. But not everyone who writes a memoir wantsothers to read it. Lads would fill exercise books withtheir unhappy life stories and then hand it to mewith no wish for it to be published or returned. Thereis a therapeutic writing exercise where participantsare invited to write a letter to the cause of theirsuffering and then place it in a sealed envelope andleave it somewhere. I was a walking envelope for sixyears.

Getting people to look realistically at their ownnarrative enables them to better imagine andappreciate the narrative of those they have harmed.In youth justice we would ask children who hadoffended how they imagined their victim felt, beforethey were scarcely able to express or comprehendhow they themselves felt about what they’d done.The database required snap assessments onemotional intelligence and victim empathy, that andmuch else on the basis of one meeting. Commonlyan absence of contrition or even the ability toexpress contrition assumed an absence of empathy.There was also I thought an implication that thesenotions are static. Exploratory autobiographicalwriting is not just about oneself. In the context ofcriminal justice it is about self-examination, but it isalso the basis of thinking long and hard aboutoneself in relation to others. Paradoxically it isessential in preparing people for and reflecting upona restorative justice process.

Not everyone wants to write about themselves.For some people, the last thing they want toexcavate is their own life. I unlocked the cell door ofone lad who had been sentenced the previous week,he swung off his bunk: I don’t want to writeanything about crime, anything to do with gangs. Hewrote a short story set in the Manchester rag trade.It amazed other gang members and lads on the

5. Albertson K E (Op. Cit.).


wing, who unlike him aren’t serving fifteen years.There is freedom and fun in fictional characters,whatever happens to them. Perhaps rather crudely Ihave exercises on creating characters from theoutside in and the inside out. Working from Image;Working from Objects; Character as Trait; Characteras Motive.

Improving the ability of participants to imaginethe emotional and psychological experiences ofother people is the most important work that can bedone with offenders. This can be approached boththrough fictional and real lives, indeed one mayusefully lead to the other. Character and empathywork is fundamental to effective offence focusedand victim awareness interventions. Althoughrestorative conferencing is now accepted practice inthe community, it is still an exceptional event incustody. Face to face meetings are oftenunderstandably undesired by the victim, or otherwiseimpractical. As a necessary substitute, practitionerssometimes employ role play: hot seating theoffender as victim or asking the offender to write tothe victim whom they cannot meet. Thusrehabilitative work involves looking at the worldfrom inside someone else’s skin; often real,sometimes imaginary. As such, drama practice thatexplores different perspectives is not uncommon incriminal justice work. For example there is theexcellent work of Geese Theatre and Theatre inPrisons and Probation, but there is clearly also aplace for employing writing exercises to helpparticipants articulate the consequences of theirbehaviour. As such I had a role to play on LancasterFarms victim awareness course, helping inmatesbuild character profiles of people that had beenburgled. Having spoken to hundreds of burglars overfifteen years of working with offenders, it has alwaysstruck me how many attempted to read thepremises, to work out something of their victims’lives from the possessions and surroundings. So Idesigned some writing exercises around imageryencounters using dialogue.

ExcerptBy Ryan

David They said my alarm would go offif someone did that.

Brian Not if you cut the power. Nowshut up.

David Don’t tell me to shut up in myown house. What are you doing?

Brian What does it look like I’m doing?

David How can you behave like this?

Brian I don’t think about that stuff. Ineed money, can’t get a job, thisis the only way. Stop asking mequestions…

Ryan said the exercise was the hardest thing he’dbeen asked to do since being sent to prison.

(Excerpt from an exercise)by Liam

A bungalow a patio Double glazing double garageBig garden, I’ve seen The children’s trampoline

Burglary is a stupid thingI’m only fifteen And I buzz when I do a graft.

Does this feel right to you? It doesn’t feel like anything to meGo in through the back doorGo up some steps go down some Go for the car keys

Someone like You

Think�of�a�face�that� is�familiar�to�you.�It�could�be�from�the

present�or�the�past,�but�it�has�to�be�someone�to�whom�you

have�never�spoken�and�know�virtually�nothing�about;�you

just� know� the� face.� Draw� the� face,�with your eyes shut.

Spend�a�few�minutes�on�this,�imagining�you�have�a�close�up

camera.�Think�about�the�eyes�and�teeth,�their�hair.�What�do

they�tell�you�about�this�person’s�life?�Now�build�a�biography

of�the�individual:�Give�them�a�name;�write�down�three�facts

about� their�parents.�Who� in� their� life�are� they�closest� to?

When�they�were�young�(maybe�they�still�are)�what�did�they

want�to�be?�Who�was�the�first�person�they�ever�kissed?

Who Wasn’t There?

Ask�the�participant�to�describe�in�detail,�a�house�or�premises

they�have�burgled.

Ask� them�to�envisage�who� lived�or�worked� there�and� to

create�at� least�one� realistic�character.�Then� to�write� the

scene�where�they�were�burgling�the�property�in�conversation

with�the�victim�who�is�demanding�that�they�justify�what�they

are�doing.

Who’s to Say?

Ask�the�participant� to�consider� the�commission�of�a�crime

and�to�write�the�internal�dialogue�as�they�work�through�what

they� are� about� to� do.� Then� to� write� the� dialogue� that

opposes committing�the�crime;�as�if�it�was�also�their�point�of

view.�Then� to�write� the�dialogue� from� the�victim’s�point�of

view;�before�and�after�the�event.


The money the jewelleryIt’s not your propertyIt’s not your stuff to touch

A TV and a laptopIt soon will be

There’s a family photo Playing football on a beachWedding pictures on the wall

They’re insured aren’t they? Job done for another day

Why us?

Perhaps the strength of writing as an intervention isthat it is difficult to fake.

‘It’s different from Offending BehaviourCourses, because this is not a course — it is amoral discussion. The Offender BehaviourCourses — you get to know what you need tosay to get them to tick the box, whereas here,you have to be honest and genuine — youcan’t hide here.’6

Writing is also the one thing in life where we get tocross out the mistakes and start again. When we speakor when we act we cannot. It is an act of communicationand expression that demands forethought. Furthermoreit requires the considered use and exploration oflanguage. This is important in prison, important indesistance. Prisons and prisoners have their ownvernacular. It’s often harsh, sometimes inventive butgenerally poor fayre. Vocabulary shrinks in prison to suitthe confinement. Eloquence is taken as weakness andwhat few words are used are compressed before they’reout. Pro-criminal language is a cloak of malice;emotionally one sided and amongst men increasinglymisogynistic. My experience over the last six years is thatmany of the relationships in the lives of the young manare in crisis, but particularly those with women. Whatwriting can do is ask the lad to begin to see it throughher eyes. The poem below is the product of an exercise ofshuffling nouns and verbs to find surprising combinationsand using two voices, one is the imagined voice of agirlfriend. As is often the case the poem is the product ofmuch useful discussion and imagining.

Letter to NatalieDaniel

Another night and another dayThe exercise yard is lazy and peacefulMy television hammers my brain cells Medication touches my bloodstream Soon I’ll be dancing out the gates back to you

Your freedom threatens meMy fear is you have a key to hereYou moan down the phone My sleeping tablets are scared they’ll All be eaten.

Can’t wait to make it up to you

To broaden vocabulary I gave away dozens ofdictionaries and thesauruses. Someone’s response tonew language can be an indicator to a preparedness tochange on a more fundamental level. Lads who want tospeak differently want to be thought of as different.Asking someone to look at how they use language indiffering contexts is an important part of the newnarrative. Then for prisoners to see their work publishedin anthologies doesn’t just raise esteem, moreimportantly it challenges the existing esteem with onebased on something else. Widely circulated anthologiesin a prison can challenge the prevailing ethic with onethat employs and cries out for a deeper sensibility.

The desistance process is divided by criminologistsinto primary and secondary desistance. Primarydesistance is about stopping offending and secondaryabout taking on a non-offending lifestyle. My experiencehas been that it is lads who are at least at the stage ofprimary desistance who are the most receptive to writingcreatively. But then they are most open to interventionsgenerally. Often they are pursuing open conditions or aresure the forthcoming release will be the last time. Theywere lads who sought me out or who were referred byanother agency such as National Offender ManagementService or Society of Voluntary Associates (a mentoringprogramme). There are obvious advantages to receivingreferrals: one gets some background information andthere is a receptive reader at hand but ‘good lads’ don’talways make for productive writers, in memoir or anyother form. Sometimes the lad for whom the segregationblock is a familiar refuge, who is not even at the stage ofprimary desistance, will make a very engaged writer.

My final lengthy project was with a prisoner whowas notoriously problematic for both staff and otherprisoners yet who wrote, largely under his own steam, afairly lengthy short story that became a popularpublication in the jail. The story bordered on the pro-criminal and consequently had a limited run but thewriter, who finished the piece whilst in segregation, hadan implacable sense of narrative. He knew instinctivelyhow to create expectation then subvert it. The plot lineswere all his, my role was largely confined to diction,punctuation and typing. Good storytelling is not thedominion of the law abiding and I believe it is worthcultivating for the sake of the seeds that are planted.Instead of writing with a prisoner I would sit and read

6. Albertson K E (Op. Cit.).


with them, reading aloud, a page each at a time. Thetext was then discussed. Do they get it, where’s it going,is it convincing? It should be very basic critical readingwhilst remaining an enjoyable experience that they willcome back to. They were texts that obviously or implicitlyraised moral questions and choices of action, which mostliterature does, and I mostly reached for Steinbeck andthe short stories of Raymond Carver. The publishersBarrington Stoke produce short easy to read fiction thatworks well.

First changes in lads, in all of us perhaps, are subtleand unconscious. Instrumental change proscribed by theindividual themselves to say, find work, stop drinking,comes later, overlaps and is incremental. I am verysceptical about self-proclaimed overnight change inanyone, especially offenders. The louder it is heralded theless likely it will arrive. Personal growth, particularly whencircumstances and background are unfavourable, is awar of attrition. In six years I never met a prisoner who Ifelt would ever be a writer but I did work with a numberwhose work was published beyond the prison and forwhom writing was a ladder to other things, mostlyfurther education. I stayed away from asking prisoners toproduce magazine journalism. I understand what it cando, but it is not my field, there are always piles of Inside

Times toppling off tables and more than anything Iwanted lads to write emotionally, for themselves, forothers.

Where now for this work? In 2012 Waterside Presspublished my text book, Behind the Lines, creativewriting with offenders and those at risk which hasaround eighty writing exercises specifically designed tosupport change in offenders. It is my ambition and mybelief that creative writing can be integral to reducingreoffending work. My experience as a writer in a prisonand as a criminal justice worker confirms that there ismuch to do. I hope to be continuing my work andresearching more closely its impact on a specific cohort ofprisoners. More widely I think there needs to be acontinued move from both writers and other artistsworking in custody and from prisons and agencies todevelop this work. Writers and other artists need toactively share reducing reoffending objectives, to bewilling to challenge offenders more and accommodateless. From the prison’s point of view, there is abackground and foreground of financial restraint andperhaps it is the contracted agencies such as substancemisuse, mentoring, mental health, education etc. thatcould be called upon to fund writers who could supporttheir work.


This study introduces a recent research andwriting project called ‘Free to Write’ and situates itwithin a long tradition of exploring the role thatcreative writing can play in prisons and for ex-offenders. Grounded in a combination of theresearch of cultural historians and of creativewriters at Liverpool John Moores University, thePaul Hamlyn Foundation-funded ‘Free to Write’project ran from 2004-2007 and explored thepotential of creative writing in prisons, and inprobation hostels, to reduce recidivism. After thisinitial stage, it continued with further researchbeing carried out into the work of other creativewriting organizations across the UK, and theirroles in the provision of creative writing practicein prisons. An anthology comprising two essaysby cultural historians, one essay offering asnapshot of creative writing practice in prisons,and a series of creative pieces was published anddisseminated to institutions and groups, for useand to offer feedback, in 2013.

The experience of the ‘Free to Write’ teamsuggests, and this article will argue, that collaborative,cross-disciplinary research and practices in the academymay fruitfully support work in the prison service andraises questions about how creative writers and prisonservice practitioners may work together to raise theprofile in the public arena of effective writing in prisons.Historical and current research reveals the ways inwhich creative writing provision relates (and has alwaysrelated) to evolving public policy, particularly as regardsrecidivism and reoffending, but also rehabilitation andpublic perceptions of punishment.

The Free to Write anthology includes a series ofpieces written by individuals currently within the prisonsystem or recently on release. These pieces — poemsand prose on a variety of topics — are at the heart ofthe project, revealing the writers’ mental and emotionaljourneys, observed by researchers and tutors, fromconsidering their past and present to envisaging adifferent future. This pattern, not shared by all, butcommon to many, suggests that writing is a valuable

way of encouraging prisoners to develop new ways ofresponding to their situations and environment. Theeditors of the anthology decided not to identify theindividual writers by full name, but rather to use firstnames and institutions. While many writers seekrecognition for their efforts, to be identified in thisvolume might have unintended consequences forprisoners in the future, or, indeed, for anyone affectedby their crimes; it may also have ramifications for anindividual writer’s future rehabilitation. The team’sdiscussion of the issue of anonymity was informed bythe research carried out by cultural historians andstands as one example here of how the dialoguebetween cultural history and creative practice hasinformed this project. The issue of anonymity was onewhich was considered by the leaders of another projectchampioning writing in prisons and the research of oneof the ‘Free to Write’ team revealed their fascinating,and embattled, history which raises questions stillpertinent today.

In 1908, a poem was submitted to the Star ofHope, a newspaper written, printed, and published forand by prisoners in the New York State prison system.The poem was a scathing commentary on conditions inthe Dannemora State Hospital, an institution for menwho had been certified insane as prisoners, and wassigned ‘Mountain Bughouse 216’.1 The poem was notaccepted for publication and it is not hard to see why.The Star of Hope had achieved international coverageas an example of positive behaviour and achievementby prisoners at a time when the majority of headlines,except in liberal-leaning newspapers, focused on thenegative or sensational. In the Australian Daily News in1904, a story about the journal suggested that it couldonly have been started in ‘such a strenuous country asAmerica’ and noted not only the range and standard ofthe contributions but also that a number of prisonersinvolved had found work in newspapers since leavingprison.

The founding and success of the journal seem, inretrospect, a considerable achievement, especiallywhen it is still customary today for those involved in

1. ‘Mountain Bughouse 216’ was Oliver Curtis Perry, whose life is the subject of Spargo, T. (2004) Wanted Man: The Forgotten story ofan American Outlaw London: Bloomsbury, based on research in the archives of the nineteenth- and early-twentieth century New YorkState correctional system.

Free to Write:A Case Study in the Impact of Cultural History Research and

Creative Writing PracticeDr Tamsin Spargo and Hannah Priest are based at Liverpool John Moores University.


writing schemes in prisons to feel the need to justifytheir work.2 At the start of the twentieth century,campaigns in the United States, and in New York State,for prison reform — on the basis of the possibility ofrehabilitation for at least some prisoners, rather thancontainment and punishment for all — were graduallygaining ground. The Star of Hope had been founded in1899 in a rare act of co-operation between two oftenopposed groups in the penal world: the Warden (OmarVan Leuven Sage) and a reformist campaigner (MaudBallington Booth).3

Many Wardens in this period were conservative,maintaining traditional practices designed to containand control convicts, and suspicious of the campaignerswho were arguing that the closed worlds of the prisonsdegraded and debased prisoners and keepers alike.Sage, in contrast, espoused some of the ideas of theProgressive Movement within thepenal system which attempted touse rational, scientific principlesto engage prisoners inproductive, improving activities.4

This progressive rationalismdiffered from the Christianunderpinning of BallingtonBooth’s reformist mission butboth shared a conviction thatrehabilitation was a fundamentalrole of the prison system and thatpractical, creative activity was keyto that process. The imperative tofoster rehabilitation and soreduce recidivism could now beseen as a shared goal for conservatives and liberalsalike, an ethos that informed the ‘Free to Write’ projectwhich hoped, and hopes, to bypass unhelpfulassumptions about ‘soft options’ mitigating rather thanbuilding on the justice system’s punitive elements.

In the Star of Hope, which included writing by, andwas distributed to, inmates first from Sing Sing alone,and later from the other major adult prisons of Auburn,Clinton and the Eastern New York Reformatory,prisoners could express and exchange views. It is hard,at this distance, to grasp how radical a departure fromthe normal regime which isolated and silenced inmatesthis was. But as debates within the paper itself showed,its writers needed to be careful about the impression

they gave.5 If prisoners were to be promoted as rationaland thoughtful, capable of either redemption orreform, there were evidently limits to the type ofwriting, to the subjects and tone that could beincluded. Mountain Bughouse 216’s submissionexceeded those limits. In selecting creative pieces forFree to Write a hundred years later the editors were notfaced with any ‘difficult’ material in these terms, butthe question of censorship was ever-present in avolume intended for a readership including prisonservice professionals, tutors, ex-offenders and policymakers.

Earlier in 1908, on 18 July, the Star of Hope hadpublished a poem by the same prisoner under his prisonidentification, ‘Dannemora State Hospital 216’.6

‘Independence Day’ was a stirring call to support thenation’s fighting men, written in the form of an

acrostic, with the first letters ofeach line spelling out ‘JULYFOURTH NINETEEN HUNDREDAND EIGHT’. It was a poem thataligned the prisoner with valuesof courage and patriotism andconnected them with the needfor social justice, making it anideal example of the impressionreformers wanted to give: as thepoem’s opening lines declare‘Justice sails on everybreeze/Under our soldiers’ flag.’7

In common with othercontributions to the paper, itinvited readers outside the

system to see those within it as sharing a belief incommon virtues and values, whatever mistakes hadbeen made in the past, and as deserving to have thoseprinciples demonstrated within the prison system aswell as in wider society.

The Star of Hope is rightly acknowledged as asignificant early example of prisoners’ writing having apositive impact on debates outside and inside theprison system about the benefits of practical, creativeactivity.8 But as a public document it does not give usaccess to how the process of writing may help aprisoner. In some of the archival research that informedthe ‘Free to Write’ project, the case of MountainBughouse 216 proved unexpectedly revealing.

2. The Daily News (Perth, Western Australia), 16 December 1904.3. The title of the paper was a tribute to Maud Ballington Booth, an English-born evangelical campaigner who had started a religious

League of Hope among prisoners there in 1896 and whose belief in rehabilitation was summarised in her 1903 book After Prison —What? (New York: H. Revell). For an account of Booth’s place in reform debates see Myrick, A. (2004) ‘Escape from the Carceral:Writing by American Prisoners, 1895-1916’, Surveillance & Society 2.1, 93-109.

4. New York Times, April 21, 1899. On Warden Sage and the reforms of the period, see McLennan, R.M. (2008) The Crisis of Imprisonment:Protest, Politics, and the Making of the American Penal State, 1776-1941 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 224-248.

5. See Myrick, ‘Escape from the Carceral’, 106.6. The journal would not accept anonymous contributions but published only the writer’s prison number.7. Star of Hope (Sing Sing, New York State), 18 July, 1908 (copy in Perry’s Dannemora State Hospital file).8. See Myrick, ‘Escape from the Carceral’, 105, and McLennan, The Crisis of Imprisonment, 224.

. . . both shared aconviction that

rehabilitation was afundamental role ofthe prison systemand that practical,creative activity waskey to that process.


Inmate 216 at the Dannemora State Hospital wasfar removed from the ideal of the rational prisonerdemonstrating a capacity for rehabilitation. After achildhood marked by poverty and neglect, Oliver Perryhad been abused in his first institution, the WesternHouse of Refuge, where he was confined for stealing asuit to sell to pay for lodgings. As an adult he workedon the railroads, where he sustained a serious headinjury that cost him his job, and was eventuallysentenced to nearly 50 years hard labour for a headline-grabbing single-handed trainrobbery. On the run and awaitingtrial he became a celebrity figurein the press, exploiting publicsuspicion of detectives as well asinterest in the romantic anti-heroimage he cultivated. Once inAuburn, and subject to thesustained use of sensorydeprivation in the punishmentblock (which was still in operationand exposed in 1912 by ThomasMott Osborne, reformer and laterSing Sing Warden), Perry’s mentalhealth collapsed. After rallyingenough to organise a massoutbreak from his first StateHospital and to publicise theneed for prison reform, he wasdeclared sane but returned toAuburn. There, after anotherspell in the punishment block, heeventually blinded himself andwas sent to the Dannemora StateHospital within the grounds ofClinton prison, known as ‘LittleSiberia’. This double isolationwas, predictably, described byone newspaper as ‘his livingtomb’.9

Perry died there after serving 38 years of hissentence, 35 blind and nearly 30 on intermittenthunger strike, being force-fed through the nose andrefusing to wear prison clothing. His was, in any terms,a troubled and tragic life. But it is the place of writing inhis life that intrigued members of the ‘Free to Write’team as they explored the possibilities of creativewriting in prison.

Perry was first encouraged to write poetry, ratherthan protest letters, in the 1890s by a Christian-reformist friend and supporter. Some were published innewspapers with positive editorial comments, but afterhis self-blinding Perry’s image in the press swiftlychanged. His story continued to appear, intermittently,

in the newspapers until his death but the persuasive,rational prisoner mutated into the raving madman asstories about him moved from the front page to thebrief and curious items sections. Perry’s own attitude towriting also changed. Initially his letters and poemswere clearly intended to attract publicity and sympathy,to protest about conditions. In his later years, Perry,aided by sighted prisoners, still composed and dictatedletters to officials and reformers, although most wereintercepted by the prison authorities, who also

regularly confiscated his poetry.He also wrote poems andnarratives that explored his pastand imagined a future. It isimpossible to ‘diagnose’ Perry’smental condition but in his laterwritings and in correspondenceabout them, it is possible to see amore reflective understanding ofhis past and of a possible lifebeyond the prison. His files revealthat the process of writing had apositive impact not on his publicstanding, or on his campaign forbetter conditions, but on hisability to imagine a life beyondboth his prison and the attitudes,significantly including his own,that had contributed to hiscrimes. Perry’s condition meantthat he would never be released,and his refusal, or inability toconform to the publiclyacceptable model of thereformable prisoner, justified hisnecessary exclusion from TheStar of Hope in 1908. But hiswritten record suggests thateven the most apparently‘hopeless’ case might respond to

the process of writing.Over a hundred years later the examples of The

Star of Hope and of the apparently hopeless case ofOliver Perry might seem to be simply historicalcuriosities, but both raise questions that are still beingdebated today. This research, together with that ofother cultural historians, suggested historical evidencefor the value of writing in prisons and the challenge ofmaking a public case for such work, and they reinforcedthe experience of creative writers who had been,individually and as part of national initiatives andnetworks, working as Writers in Residence at a numberof institutions. Through their dialogue a cross-disciplinary project emerged to explore the impact of

9. Utica Saturday Globe, February 1917.

His files reveal thatthe process ofwriting had a

positive impact noton his public

standing, or on hiscampaign for betterconditions, but on

his ability to imaginea life beyond bothhis prison and the

attitudes,significantly

including his own,that had contributed

to his crimes.


creative writing in prisons and probation servicefacilities.

The final stage of this project is an anthology, andthis publication returns us, in many ways, to thequestions relating to prisoners’ writing raised by TheStar of Hope at the beginning of the twentieth century.As in the case of the earlier publication, the Free toWrite anthology addressed issues about prisonerwelfare and rehabilitation, but also about publicperceptions of prison life and prisoners’ writing.

As suggested, early twentieth-century prisonreformers viewed ‘productive, improving activities’ asbeing a cornerstone of rehabilitation; the creation ofThe Star of Hope, a forum in which prisoners were ableto share writing (often with a view to exploring andexpressing a desire for personalreform) reveals a belief thatwriting itself might be one such‘productive, improving activity’.Moreover, as we move throughthe twentieth century, we seewriting, and the arts in general,becoming viewed as, not just apossible activity, but a uniqueopportunity for productive andimproving activity. In 1962,Arthur Koestler founded anaward scheme for prisonerwriting and artwork. Originallyplanned as an award for essaywriting, the Koestler awards wereintended to reward creative,productive activity. Himself aformer political prisoner, Koestlerwas a firm believer in the positiveimpact of mental stimulation on a prisoner’s wellbeingand rehabilitation.10 Moving closer to the presentproject, Michael Crowley — one of the writers-in-residence who submitted work to the Free to Writeanthology on behalf of prisoners — argues that ‘forrehabilitative purposes, it is important that prisoners arepresented with the opportunity to paint, dance andespecially write’.11

In developing the anthology, researchers from the‘Free to Write’ team interviewed numerous peoplecurrently working with creative writing within theprison system, including Writers in Residence, prisonlibrarians and Education Officers. Though each persondescribed individual experiences and opinionsconcerning the role of creative writing in prisons, somecommon ground emerged. The questions of hope,

ambition, self-esteem and ‘rehumanisation’ werefrequently discussed, and these are specifically anddirectly related to the issues of individual reform andrehabilitation.12 Moreover, creative writing is oftenposited as a peculiarly potent medium through whichthese questions can be addressed, offering, as it does,space for imagining possible futures, examining selfand self-identity, and exploring levels of empathy. Thecreative section of the anthology, which includes acommentary by Adam Creed, draws attention to thispotency and its significance to an individual journeyfrom ‘beginning’ to ‘a world beyond’.

Nevertheless, writing can also offer a forum ofcommunication between prisoners, beyond everydayinteractions, fulfilling an educative purpose which is,

again, linked to reform andrehabilitation. Like the earlytwentieth-century Star of Hope,many creative writing projectstoday focus on the significance ofprisoner writing for otherprisoners. Publication of work isoften disseminated first andforemost within the prisonsystem. A number of projectshave sought to use prisoners’writing as a means of helpingnew or young prisoners come toterms with the reality of theircircumstances, with life-writing,poetry and prose being used astools for providing advice andmentoring. Internal prisoner-authored newspapers — like, forexample, Roast, the newspaper

run by inmates at HM YOI Glen Parva during GarethCreer’s writer-residency — can be valuable sources ofpractical information, encouragement, sympathy andsolidarity. By drawing on both the traditions identifiedby cultural historians and the ‘best practice’ noted bycreative writers, the ‘Free to Write’ project was able toposition the final anthology alongside other examplesof prisoner writing and, as such, recognise theimportance of its free availability to prison librariesthroughout the United Kingdom.

Nevertheless, the project research — bothhistorical and practice-based — revealed another set ofconcerns that arise when dealing with creative writingby prisoners. As the research into The Star of Hopedemonstrated, this early (and radical) journal wasoriginally intended to be written for and by prisoners.

10. We are grateful to Tim Robertson, Chief Executive of the Koestler Trust, for his valuable assistance with regards to Arthur Koestler’swork and legacy. See also Scammell, M. (2009) Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual London: Faber and Faber.

11. Crowley, M. (2012) ‘Editor’s Note’, in Time of Death: Fiction, Poetry and Memoir From HM YOI Lancaster Farms, 1.12. See Priest, H. (2013) ‘Free to Write: Prison Voices’, in Creer, G., Priest, H. and Spargo, T. (eds) Free to Write: Prison Voices Past and

Present, Liverpool: Headland.

Himself a formerpolitical prisoner,

Koestler was a firmbeliever in the

positive impact ofmental stimulationon a prisoner’swellbeing andrehabilitation.


However, the case of Mountain Bughouse 216 revealsthe journal’s other, more public-facing, role. Theassumption that the journal would be read byindividuals outside the prison walls links The Star ofHope, again, to the work of the Koestler awardsscheme, as well as to that of the Writers in PrisonsNetwork and other contemporary organisations.Prisoners’ art (and writing in particular) is oftencollected, displayed and disseminated to an audienceoutside the prison system, and its function in thisrespect is also significant.

Publication of prisoners’ work to a wider audienceoutside the prison walls fulfils a number of purposes.For example, creative writing by prisoners can and isused with young people at risk of offending, serving aslife lessons from individuals whose authority and voiceare, perhaps, more likely to be taken seriously. In abroader context, prisoners’ writing can be used to‘rehumanise’ offenders in the eyes of the generalpublic. It has been argued by a number oforganisations, not least the Koestler Trust, that this‘rehumanisation’ can play an important role in shapingand informing public views (and, potentially, publicpolicy) on punishment and rehabilitation. In recentyears — or, perhaps more accurately, in recent discoursebuilding on a foundation laid after the abolition ofhanging — this question of rehabilitation and its role inthe prevention of reoffending has been at the forefrontof debates about offender education and arts projectsin the UK.

The idea that prisoner writing can shape andinform public perception and policy returns us to thehistorical examples of The Star of Hope and MountainBughouse 216, as well as resonating withcontemporary practice and theory. Throughout thehistory of prison writing — which is also the history ofprisons — memoirs and life-writing have been used astools of reform. Or, if not reform per se, public

education about the reality and conditions of prisons.As can be seen in the story of Oliver Perry, poetry andletter writing have long been utilised by prisonersdetermined to bring their circumstances to theattention of a wider audience and, in some cases, toattempt to effect change. Prisoner writing is alsooffered as a means through which society’s views ofimprisonment can be confronted and, potentially,changed. In 1995 Clive Hopwood of the (now) Writersin Prisons Network wrote of the need to address publicperceptions of prisoners, and the role that creativewriting might play in this: ‘perhaps if we listened a littlemore to what they have to say […] we mightunderstand a little better and judge more wisely’.13 Thisaspect of creative writing, and of the arts generally, asa tool of radical commentary and potential systemicreform, is one that might bear further scrutiny incontemporary debate. The Star of Hope, and thevarious prisoner writing projects that have followed it,remind us that writing can be (and is frequently) utilisedas a tool for change — be it in terms of the individualprisoner or of public perceptions — but also as a meansof engagement with public policy. Again, the ‘Free toWrite’ project sought to engage with this discourse,and the researchers felt that it was important that theanthology be made available to academics,practitioners and members of the public outside theprison walls, just as it was circulated within those walls.

This article has offered the interdisciplinary workof the ‘Free to Write’ project as a case study in thedialogues that are on-going between culturalhistorians and creative writers. As well as presentingsome insights into the project itself, we have alsoindicated some of the ways in which collaborationbetween academic and practice-based researchersmight be used to explore the role of prisoners’ writingfor the prison and the public.

13. Hopwood, C. (1995) ‘Foreword’, in All Men are Equalish: The View From Inside Prison (HMP Swansea) Clwyd: I*D Books, 7.


Introduction

This article explores why working with the publichas always been key to the Prison Reform Trustand why it is now as important as ever to buildvocal public support for prison reform.

The Prison Reform Trust is an independent UKcharity whose aim is to work with others to create ajust, humane and effective prison system in the UK. Itsunderlying aims are to reduce unnecessaryimprisonment and promote community solutions tocrime, and to improve treatment and conditions forprisoners and their families. The charity’s work is basedon evidence from research, public opinion polling andtestimony from the 5,000 prisoners and their familiescontacting its advice service each year. Working inpartnership is key to the charity’s work with the public.

The context

Over-use of imprisonment

Prison numbers have exploded since the early1990s, leading to high levels of overcrowding whichpersist to this day. The pressing social needs of manypeople in custody (mental health problems, learningdisabilities, lack of skills and qualifications, care historyto name a few1) have led some to describe prison as a‘warehouse’ of our social problems.2

All but a handful of people who spend time inprison will return to live in the community. Nearly 47per cent of adults and 72.3 per cent of children (under18s) are proven to reoffend within a year of leavingcustody.3 Prison sentences of less than one year have aparticularly poor record of reducing reoffending, with58.5 per cent of adults proven to reoffend within a year

of their release.4 Government research has found thatcommunity sentences are nearly seven per cent moreeffective than these short prison sentences at reducingreoffending.5

These poor results come at a high economic cost.The average annual overall cost of a prison place inEngland and Wales for the financial year 2011-12 was£37,648.6 The cost of a high intensity two-yearcommunity order, containing 80 hours of unpaid workand mandatory accredited programmes, has beencalculated at £4,200. Shorter community sentencescost much less.7

The government’s approach

The Ministry of Justice must make dramatic budgetsavings by 2016 and is at the same time committed toa ‘rehabilitation revolution’. Yet, despite evidence of therelative effectiveness and fractional cost of communitysentencing, the government has rejected calls to reducereliance on short prison sentences for less seriousoffending in favour of increased investment in effectivecommunity options. Instead, current efforts appear tobe focused on saving costs by creating ever largerprisons, even though they have been found to be lesssafe and less effective than smaller, local prisons.8

One interpretation of this policy approach is thatthe government believes punitive public attitudesdemand the use of prison even for comparatively pettyoffences.

The Prison Reform Trust’s view

The Prison Reform Trust, allied charities and civicsociety groups together with many who manage andwork in the justice system, believe that the government

1. For recent statistics see: Prison Reform Trust (2013) Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile Autumn 2013, London: Prison Reform Trust.2. Colin Moses, former Chairman, Prison Governors’ Association. Talking Justice, London: Prison Reform Trust (2011).3. ables 18a and 18b, Ministry of Justice (2013) Proven reoffending quarterly October 2010 – September 2011, London: Ministry of

Justice.4. Ibid, Table 19a.5. Table A1, Ministry of Justice (2013) 2013 Compendium of reoffending statistics and analysis, London: Ministry of Justice.6. Table 1, Ministry of Justice (2012) Costs per place and costs per prisoner by individual prison, National Offender Management Service

Annual Report and Accounts 2011-12: Management Information Addendum, London: Ministry of Justice.7. National Audit Office (2010) Managing offenders on short custodial sentences, London: The Stationery Office.8. Prison Reform Trust (2008) Titan Prisons: A gigantic mistake, London: Prison Reform Trust.

Talking Justice:Building vocal public support for prison reform

Katy Swaine Williams led the Prison Reform Trust’s outreach programme from 2011 to December 2013,supported by the Monument Trust and aimed at bringing prison reform to a wider audience, inspiring and

supporting others to take action. Janet Crowe is deputy director at the Prison Reform Trust and has ongoingresponsibility for the charity’s work with the public.


should make a concerted effort to reduce reliance onshort prison sentences, as well as reining in overallinflation in sentence lengths. Instead it should put itsmoney and its rhetorical weight behind effectivecommunity sentencing options and look far beyond thecriminal justice system to find solutions to crime anddisorder. Recent research suggests that public opinion iscloser to that view than politicians appear to think.However, it may be that public support needs to belouder and clearer in order to break through theopposing rhetoric, often expressed in sensational mediaheadlines.

Building vocal public support for prison reform

The state of public opinion

A People’s Justice pollcommissioned by the PrisonReform Trust in 1982, the yearafter the charity was founded,demonstrated public support forwhat was then known ascommunity service. A 2011survey similarly found that ‘whilethe public may ‘talk tough’ inresponse to opinion polls whichask whether sentencing is harshenough, when consideringspecific criminal cases andindividual circumstances, there isconsiderable support formitigating punishments’.9 Recentsurveys conducted for the PrisonReform Trust have indicatedstrong public support foropportunities for people whohave committed offences such as theft and vandalismto do unpaid work in the community as part of theirsentence, and for drug treatment, mental health careand intensive supervision of community orders toprevent such offences being repeated.10

A 2006 ICM poll of 1,000 victims of crimecommissioned by the Prison Reform Trust and VictimSupport showed that almost two-thirds did not believethat prison works to reduce non-violent crime.11

Research published in 2012 by Make Justice Work andVictim Support concludes that, like the general public,victims are broadly open to the use of community

sentences but have doubts as to how effective they arein practice.12 The research findings suggested thatraising awareness and confronting misplacedperceptions about community sentences would lead tohigher levels of public support for them.13 This is backedby the results of surveys conducted under the PrisonReform Trust’s recent outreach programme.

The Prison Reform Trust’s work to buildpublic support

‘...the more one learns about conditions andpractices in Britain’s prisons, the more convinced onebecomes of the urgent need for change…

‘If we can persuadethe British public… then thebattle is part won.’

Sir Monty Finniston,Founding Chairman,

Prison Reform Trust, 1981

The Prison Reform Trust wasfounded on the belief that peopleshould know what is happeningin their own penal system, andthis remains at the core of thecharity’s values. Public supportalso has a unique power toachieve reform, whether throughfinancial support for reformorganisations, or vocal publicsupport expressed in ways thatinfluence decision makers.

The Prison Reform Trustfulfils its commitment to workingwith the public by disseminating

factual information on what is happening within thesystem, researching and publicising public opinion andacting as an independent advocate for change.

The Prison Reform Trust is perhaps best known forits regular, informative publications, produced for awide range of supporters, policy makers andpractitioners — first in the Prison Report (from 1987)and more recently in the Bromley Briefings PrisonFactfile, as well as monthly e-newsletters and, since2013, the ‘Prison: The Facts’ app.

The charity makes positive use of press commentand broadcast aimed at promoting sensible messages

9. Roberts, J. and Hough, M. (2011) Custody or community? Exploring the boundaries of public punitiveness in England and Wales,Criminology & Criminal Justice 11(2) pp181-197, Norwich: Page Bros.

10. Prison Reform Trust (2011) Public want offenders to make amends briefing paper, London: Prison Reform Trust; Prison Reform Trust(2012) Public back community and health solutions to cutting crime – press release 18/12/12, London: Prison Reform Trust.

11. Prison Reform Trust (2006) SmartJustice briefing: Crime victims say jail doesn’t work, London: Prison Reform Trust.12. Victim Support and Make Justice Work (2012) Out in the Open: what victims really think about community sentencing, London: Victim

Support and Make Justice Work.13. Ibid.

. . . it should put itsmoney and its

rhetorical weightbehind effective

communitysentencing optionsand look far beyondthe criminal justice

system to findsolutions to crime

and disorder.


about prison reform to a wider audience, andresponding to the many criminal justice news storieswith a measured, evidence-based approach. In this way,the charity’s messages can be heard by millions ofpeople each month via print and broadcast media.

Many of the Prison Reform Trust’s successes overthe years have been achieved without seeking thesupport of public opinion. However, where it has beenpossible to demonstrate public support, this has had apowerful impact. Three major programmes of workover the last 12 years have added to the charity’slearning about working with the public.

SmartJustice (2002-2008)

The Prison Reform Trust established SmartJustice in2002, supported by the Network for Social Change andthe Big Lottery Fund, in order to draw attention to andreduce the number of, peopleserving short prison sentences.Activities included extensivenational and regional mediawork, publishing opinion surveys,participating in local and regionalevents, using creative publicityand e-campaigning.

SmartJustice succeeded inframing the debate on criminaljustice in an accessible, innovativeway and in taking thesemessages to the general publicand media. It garnered cross-party support and createdan active alliance of supporters. Amongst theprogramme’s key achievements were the building ofalliances with national and regional organisations,including civic society bodies such as the NationalCouncil of Women and Soroptimists International, andhelping to secure the 2008 resolution by the NationalFederation of Women’s Institutes (the NFWI) to end theinappropriate imprisonment of people with mentalhealth problems.14 This laid the foundation for thecurrent Care not Custody campaign led jointly by thePrison Reform Trust and the NFWI and with a broadcoalition of support (see below).

Out of Trouble (2007-12)

2007 saw the start of the Prison Reform Trust’sfive-year Out of Trouble programme, supported by TheDiana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. Theprogramme made a major, independently evaluated

contribution to a 42 per cent reduction in the numberof children in custody from 2007 to 2012. Focusing onthe decision to imprison — who makes the decisionand who or what in turn influences the main decisionmakers — the team found particular success indeveloping relationships with key civil servants, workinglocally and nationally, and using research to throw newlight on areas of common practice and uncoverinformation.15 Working closely with the Home Office,the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Educationand the Treasury, the Prison Reform Trust was able toinform national decision making.

At the same time the Out of Trouble team’sinitiative to determine what factors were driving upchild custody was welcomed by local authorities withthe highest child prison numbers all of whomsucceeded in dropping below the national average byplanned earlier intervention to support children and

families in trouble and bettercoordination of existing services.

The Prison Reform Trust’shigh media profile helped tobolster the programme’seffectiveness. However, the Outof Trouble team found thatmaking e-campaigning workrequired considerable staff andresources and concluded that,however desirable it is in the longterm to shift public opinion,penal reforms can be achieved

without it by working largely behind the scenes toachieve change.16

Outreach programme (2010-13)

Supported by the Monument Trust, the PrisonReform Trust invested in a programme of outreachwork from 2010 to 2013 to inform public debate andsupport others to get involved through volunteering orpressing for reform.

We wanted to reach a wider audience withengaging, high quality materials about the

prison system

We established new and closer workingrelationships with civic society organisations with acombined reach of about 1.7m people, including theSoroptimists UK, the National Council of Women andthe University of the Third Age (U3A). The Soroptimists

14. Prison Reform Trust (2008) SmartJustice North East final report, Durham: Prison Reform Trus.t15. Prison Reform Trust (2012) Reducing child and youth imprisonment: learning from the Out of Trouble programme, London: Prison

Reform Trust.16. Ibid.

. . . where it hasbeen possible to

demonstrate publicsupport, this hashad a powerful

impact.


adopted a national campaign to reduce women’simprisonment and the National Council of Womenmade a resolution to call on the Government to reformwomen’s justice. The U3A collaborated with the PrisonReform Trust to develop and disseminate discussiontools about prison reform. We collaborated with newpartners with large social media networks such asMumsnet, and benefited from ongoing partnershipwith the NFWI.

Thanks to these relationships and using theInternet and social media, the Prison Reform Trust isnow regularly able to reach tens of thousands of peopleacross the UK with information and opportunities tosupport prison reform. The charity has also been able toextend its reach at local level throughout the UK,including through local events and media coverage.

We produced new materials about prison reform ina variety of formats during the outreach programme,including film and audio material. The resources areaimed at building support for prison reform by usingfirsthand accounts by people with direct experience ofthe system and setting the context using official dataand independent research. They also give guidance onhow to get involved in making the system better,including through voluntary work. Some resources wereproduced with, and for, specific audiences. Forexample:

Short films and audio materialShort films and audio material containingtestimony of men, women and children withconvictions, policy makers and practitioners,posted on YouTube and the Prison Reform Trustwebsite, and played at meetings and events.

Targeted action packsWe collaborated with the NFWI and theSoroptimists UK to produce tailored resources tosupport their campaigns:• The Care not Custody action pack was

disseminated to over 6,000 branches of theNFWI, setting out the achievements of theircampaign to date seeking appropriatetreatment for people with mental healthneeds and learning disabilities in the criminaljustice system, and providing a toolkit forfurther action by WI members

• The Soroptimists’ Action Pack was a tailoredresource to support the Soroptimists’campaign to reduce women’s imprisonment,disseminated to all 246 clubs UK-wide. Afollow up report detailing clubs’ activities andachievements will be published in 2014. Thiswill provide a unique map of services forwomen as well as highlighting current gaps inprovision.

Talking Justice resourcesTwo new resources aimed at the general publicwere produced and widely disseminated:• Produced with the U3A, ‘Where Do You

Stand?’ is a set of discussion tools aimed atnon-experts aged 16 and above who arelooking for authoritative and engagingmaterial on which to base discussions inschools and community groups about prisonand community sentencing in England andWales. It includes activities based on facts andfigures, firsthand accounts, photographs andfilms as well as a ‘before and after’ attitudessurvey

• What Can I Do?’ is a comprehensive, widelydistributed guide to volunteering in thecriminal justice system and pressing forreform, produced by the Prison Reform Trustwith Pact. The guide provides the basis forone of the ‘Where Do You Stand?’ activities,focusing on how participants might take theirinterest further by taking action.

Following initial electronic and postaldissemination and a launch event in Manchesterattended by representatives of the U3A, Pact, VictimSupport, the Magistrates’ Association, the SoroptimistsUK, Action for Prisoners’ Families and others, the PrisonReform Trust embarked on a programme of localTalking Justice meetings across England and Wales, toget people talking and getting involved in improvingoutcomes in the criminal justice system. The charity hasbeen invited to present Talking Justice and its outreachprogramme in general to the NCW, the Magistrates’Association and Manchester Students Union debatingsociety and further talks are planned throughout 2014.From January 2011 to December 2013 the charityreached well over 630,000 people with these materialsand a range of other publications produced in the sameperiod. This is in addition to routine media work by thecharity’s senior staff, reaching approximately eighteenand a half million people in January 2014 throughprinted press alone and an extraordinary 124,446,396via web and wires!

By improving the Prison Reform Trust website andincreasing social media activity, the charity achieved a39 per cent increase in unique website visitors from2011/12 to 2012/13 (to over 84,500), and a 27 per centincrease in page views per year (to over 400,000). Sincelaunching a Twitter feed in January 2011, the PrisonReform Trust has built an audience of over 7,000Twitter followers. The charity has gained over 500Facebook ‘likes’ since launching an active profile in July2012. Live streaming the charity’s 2012 lectureattended by over 400 people more than doubled theevent’s audience.


We wanted to support others to take action inline with our strategic aims, adding strength to

work to effect reform

A key part of the outreach programme was tobuild on the success of SmartJustice by developing newand closer working relationships with civic societyorganisations and to support them to take action. Wealso wanted to continue experimenting with e-campaigning, partly in order to develop more ways forthe Prison Reform Trust’s supporters to get activelyinvolved in its work, thereby strengthening andsustaining their support andmaking the most of theirinfluence to help achieve reform.

These two strands of workproduced tangible results. As aresult of being approached by thePrison Reform Trust and with thecharity’s ongoing support, all thecivic society organisations weworked with during theprogramme have taken action,achieving some real change inthe justice system.

NFWI — Care not Custody

The NFWI’s ‘Care notCustody’ initiative was inspiredby the tragic death by suicide of aschizophrenic young man inManchester prison, the son of aWI member. Since then the PrisonReform Trust has worked inpartnership with the NFWI toeffect change in the justice andhealth system.

In 2011 the then Secretaries of State for Justice,Kenneth Clarke, and for Health, Andrew Lansley,acknowledged that they were influenced by the NFWIto make a joint commitment with the Department ofHealth to invest £50m to begin implementing mentalhealth and learning disability liaison and diversionservices across England. A further £25 million hasrecently been invested to extend pilot services but theoriginal commitment to full roll out of liaison anddiversion services has slipped from 2014 to 2017. Theongoing joint leadership by the NFWI and the PrisonReform Trust of the Care not Custody coalition whichthey convened is helping to maintain pressure on thegovernment to ensure this promise is kept.

Amongst others Coalition members include thePrison Governors and Prison Officers Associations, thePolice Federation of England and Wales Royal Collegesof Nursing and Psychiatrists, the Law Society and Bar

Council and many mental health and penal affairscharities.

Soroptimists UK and National Council of Women— Reforming women’s justice

We held the first two e-campaigns on the mainPrison Reform Trust website in 2011 and 2012,promoted via the networks of the charity’s partners.Here we encouraged people to write to their MPs insupport of new legislation to secure women’s justicereforms. This took the form of a proposed amendment

first to the Legal Aid, Sentencingand Punishment of Offenders Billand then, in a slightly alteredform, to the Crime and CourtsBill. The campaigns weresupported by over 58 NCWmembers as well as manySoroptimists and others whowrote to their MPs. Together withthe work of our Chair, LordWoolf, in Parliament, this helpedto secure a publishedgovernment strategy on women’sjustice (June 2013) and agovernment amendment to theOffender Rehabilitation Bill thatprovides a first legislativefoothold for rehabilitationservices in the community thattake account of the particularneeds of women.

What we learned

The Prison Reform Trust’sfact-based, partnership approach

provides a strong and credible foundation on which tobase effective communication with the public and otheraudiences. However, the organisation is not simply aneutral provider of information. Its communications arefounded on values and aims which are not necessarilyshared by all those who have the power to help achievethe changes the charity is looking for. This means thePrison Reform Trust must continually examine how itcommunicates with audiences who have differentperspectives and motivations. Some of the challengeswe encountered in the outreach programme includeddeveloping the charity’s voice for non-specialistaudiences and communicating nuanced messageseffectively in different forums.

Regular joint work with partners like VictimSupport adds important balance to the Prison ReformTrust’s work. Too often the popular press in particulartry to create an unhelpful divide between those who

As a result of beingapproached by thePrison Reform Trust

and with thecharity’s ongoing

support, all the civicsociety

organisations weworked with during

the programmehave taken action,achieving some real

change in thejustice system.


work with victims and those who work with offenderswhen the shared aim is to reduce crime and distress andensure fewer victims in future. It has also been valuableto engage with a range of audiences in order to groundthe charity’s messages in the real world and bepersuasive. It helps that the Prison Reform Trust acts asa ‘critical friend’ to the prison service and many of theteam have worked in, or managed, justice services andconsequently understand that there are no easyanswers when working with people in difficulty.

The organisation is still learning how to useInternet discussion forums and social media effectivelyto raise awareness and engage in constructive debate.Experimenting through collaboration with Mumsnet ona discussion thread, and working closely with theSoroptimists, has helped the Prison Reform Trust torefine its messages about reforming women’s justice,including developing ‘mythbusting’ information.

Regular media work extends the Prison ReformTrust’s reach and the charity is learning to reach outfurther using film and social media. The work with theNFWI, the Soroptimists and the NCW, in combinationwith the use of the Internet and social media, has hadsignificant results. Relationships with civic societyorganisations have allowed the Prison Reform Trust tomake the most of its resources by communicating withnetworks of people who are already engaged in theirlocal communities. There is considerably more potentialto achieve change by working in this way to inform andsupport civic society groups.

Involving individual members of the public activelyand effectively in justice reform on a regular basis is anarea of continuing development for the Prison ReformTrust. Carefully targeted e-campaigns, conducted inpartnership with civic society organisations, havehelped the charity to achieve change. Developing thiswork further will require dedicated staff resources andcloser integration into the charity’s regular strategicplanning.

Conclusions

There is much that can be achieved withoutchanging public opinion or demonstrating that there ispublic support for reform, as seen in the Out of Troubleprogramme. However, vocal public support can havetangible results. It remains a longer-term aim of thePrison Reform Trust to work with its partners towardsachieving cultural change at a national level, to‘mainstream’ prison reform.

The Prison Reform Trust’s vision is for decisionmakers to be operating in an environment in whichmainstream public opinion is widely understood to bestrongly in favour of sensible criminal justice reform.Until this goal is achieved, most policy makers willcontinue to feel constrained by perceptions of hostilepublic opinion and fears of negative headlines,distorting policy development and severely limitingprogress towards a more just, humane and effectiveprison system.


What’s it Worth? Value Inside was a collaborativeproject between the University of Leeds and LeedsMuseums and Galleries, funded through the Artand Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It wasdeveloped to research whether providingprisoners with access to museum objects andparticipating in work inspired by them couldcontribute to levels of subjective wellbeing. Thetheme of the project was ‘What makes somethingvaluable?’ as it was believed this wouldencourage the participants to challenge theirexisting perceptions of value and look beyond theobvious monetary value of things. However, whatbecame clear throughout the process of planningand delivering the project was that there was thepotential to make an impact on a far wideraudience than just the prisoner participants. Byusing the project to challenge the stereotypicalviews held about the purpose of both prisons andmuseums the idea of using the institution of themuseum to provide a lens for the public to viewthe work delivered in prisons arose. As creativework delivered in prisons is often hidden for fearof how it will be portrayed by the media andperceived by the public, could presenting it in themuseum environment encourage people tochallenge their existing preconceptions and allowa more open debate around the potential ofrehabilitation in prisons to take place?

The first section of this article will review existingliterature from both the criminal justice sector and themuseum sector as a means of highlighting areas ofcrossover between the two fields and the potentialvalue that could be gained from collaborativerelationships between prisons and museums. Usingexamples from the What’s It Worth? Value Insideproject the second section of this article will aim to

demonstrate how the perception of what the public willthink made a powerful impact on the decisions andbehaviours of those that were involved in the research.

Previous research suggests that the publicgenerally know very little about life inside prison andthat the main source of information from which theybase their opinions is the media.1 If the majority ofinformation provided by the media is negative theconcern is that this will reduce the level of confidencethe public has in the criminal justice system andultimately threaten the legitimacy of the system in theeyes of the public.2 If as Andrew Coyle suggestsresearch indicates that levels of imprisonment owemore to public opinion and political decisions than torates of crime, the value of exploring new ways ofproviding the public with a realistic idea of the nature ofprisons could be of great significance.3 Although AnneReuss acknowledges there is evidence that many goodand positive things do currently take place in prisons,these are very rarely reported on or talked about on abroad enough social platform to spark any widerchanges to policy or political opinion.4 If the mediacannot provide such a platform for discussion otherpotential forums need to be explored, one of whichcould be museums.

An increasing amount of research is currentlybeing proposed and carried out to explore the differentways museums can be seen to benefit society and worksuccessfully as agents of social change.5 Recent studiesaround the social responsibility of museums proposesthat in the twenty-first century ethical museums shouldbe places that encourage active citizenship bydeveloping a relationship of trust between themselvesand the public they serve.6 By recognising the evershifting identities of their staff and visitors ethicalmuseums should strive to create a more just society byengaging with themes of work that challenge

1. Roberts, J. V. and M. Hough (2005). ‘The State of the Prisons: Exploring Public Knowledge and Opinion.’ The Howard Journal ofCriminal Justice 44(3): 286-306. Feilzer, M. (2009). ‘The Importance of Telling a Good Story: An Experiment in Public Criminology.’ TheHoward Journal of Criminal Justice 48(5): 472-484.

2. Feilzer, M. (2009). ‘The Importance of Telling a Good Story: An Experiment in Public Criminology.’ The Howard Journal of CriminalJustice 48(5): 472-484.

3. Coyle, A. (2005). Understanding Prisons: Key Issues in Policy and Practice. Berkshire, Open University Press.4. Reuss, A. (2003). ‘Taking a Long Hard Look at Imprisonment.’ The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 42(5): 426-436.5. Sandell, R. (2003). ‘Social inclusion, the museum and the dynamics of sectoral change.’ Museum and Society 1(1): 45-62. Silverman, L.

H. (2010). The Social Work of Museums. London, Routledge.6. Besterman, T. (2011). Museum Ethics. A Companion to Museum Studies. S. Macdonald. Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell. Lynch, B. T. (2011).

Collaboration, Contestation, and Creative Conflict: on the Efficacy of Museum/Community Partnerships. The Routledge Companion toMuseum Ethics. J. Marstine. London, Routledge. Marstine, J., Ed. (2011). The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics — RedefiningEthics for the Twenty-First-Century Museum. Oxon, Routledge.

Challenging Perceptions:Considering the Value of Public Opinion

Rachel Forster is based at University of Leeds and Liz Knight works at Leeds Museum and Discovery Centre.


traditional values and orthodoxies, in order to provide aforum for visitors and staff to think through the difficultissues facing society.7 As Janet Marstine suggests oneway for museums to achieve this aspiration is to forgecollaborative relationships with a diverse range ofstakeholders and be willing to assume the risksassociated with taking novel standpoints which wouldsuggest a level of openness about such collaborationsto the public.8

The idea of a museum and a prison as collaborativepartners is not as strange or new a concept as it mayfirst appear. According to Bennett if we look to theoriginal intention behind why museums and prisonswere established clear similarities can be found. Thiscan be seen from the idea that they both targetbehaviours or beliefs seen by the government as inneed of transformation, and encourage people to alterthese to be more in line withthose behaviours deemed asbeing acceptable.9 In this sensemuseums and prisons are atopposing ends of the samespectrum. If museums aim tosubtly coerce people intochanges in behaviour then aprison can be viewed as the nextstep when that fails. Recentresearch by Charlotte Bilby et alcan be seen to support this ideaand suggests that the positivefeeling achieved throughparticipation in arts basedinterventions can contribute to asense of community cohesionand a feeling of achievement, both of which can belinked to secondary desistance from crime.10

What’s it Worth? Value Inside

The Discovery Centre Museum is unlike othermuseums and consequently perfectly placed to providean alternative lens through which the public can viewthe What’s it Worth? Value Inside project. The Museumis one of nine sites that make up the Leeds MuseumService and is the main site responsible for conservingand storing the objects not on display at the other sites.In addition it is also responsible for developingcommunity engagement and research into thecollections. Unlike the other museums in the service the

majority of the exhibits at the Discovery Centre displayobjects from the collections alongside work created bydifferent community groups as part of the outreachwork delivered. Visits to the Discovery Centre are byappointment only and often include a tour of thebuilding which consists of the storage facility for themain collections, as well as the displays of thecommunity project work. One of these is now theCabinet of Curiosity which was built in HMP Wakefieldas part of the project and contains the artefacts createdby the prisoner participants during the project. As thecabinet was donated to the Discovery Centre at the endof the project it too is now part of the museum’scollection of objects creating a lasting legacy for theprisoner participants to feel proud of.

For the museum service this project was anopportunity to engage with a new community that is

traditionally closed to museums,as well the rest of society. It washoped it would provide anopportunity to explore thepotential impact museums canmake on prisoner wellbeing andhow such engagement couldinform future museumcommunity engagementpractice.

The first encounter with theconcept of public perceptionarose while attempting to puttogether a collection of museumobjects that could be used torepresent the theme of valueduring the project. At this point it

became clear that some of the curatorial staff at themuseum were initially reluctant to suggest objects fromtheir collection to be included. Some cited theirperception was that taking the objects into a highsecurity prison posed too great a risk to the objects andthat their reluctance for the inclusion of certain objectswas to protect them from harm. For other staff it wasmore about their personal opinion as a member of thepublic, based on what they had heard in the press,rather than their professional opinion as a museumcurator. Their perception was that such people did notnecessarily deserve access to these objects, and thatengaging with prisoners might reflect badly on themuseum service in the eyes of the existing andestablished museum audience.

7. Besterman, T. (2011). Museum Ethics. A Companion to Museum Studies. S. Macdonald. Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell. Lynch, B. T. (2011).Collaboration, Contestation, and Creative Conflict: on the Efficacy of Museum/Community Partnerships. The Routledge Companion toMuseum Ethics. J. Marstine. London, Routledge.

8. Marstine, J., Ed. (2011). The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics — Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-First-Century Museum.Oxon, Routledge.

9. Bennett, T. (1995). The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. London, Routledge.10. Bilby, C., Parkes, R. & Ridley, L. 2013. Re-imagining Futures: Exploring Arts Interventions and the Process of Desistance. London: Arts

Alliance.

The idea of amuseum and a

prison ascollaborative

partners is not asstrange or new aconcept as it may

first appear.


Even when curators were keen to be involved inthe project and suggest objects for inclusion there wasstill evidence of some areas of public perception thatrequired challenging. One of the curators was underthe impression that the prisoners would only beinterested in objects that related to prison, as thoughthey would never have had any concept of life outside,almost as if all they had ever been in life was a prisoner.In general, the museum staff were initially confused bysome of my choices of museum objects, particularly theWorld War one postcard. I selected this object as Ithought the prisoners would value the skill of theneedlework, as I was aware of the Fine Cell Workundertaken by some prisoners. I also thought theywould make a connection between the soldier trying tokeep in touch with his family and their own efforts tomaintain family relationships from within prison.11 Forthe museum staff this object wasnot one instantly thought ofwhen working with groups ofmen, particularly not thoseperceived as being hardenedcriminals. The museum EducationOfficer who participated in anumber of sessions during theproject, was particularly shockedat the strong affiliation felt bysome of the participants to thepostcard, most notably when itwas voted as one of theirfavourite objects during theobject handling sessions deliveredby the group to others in theeducation department. Several other objects that werepopular amongst the prisoners during these sessions,and the reasons behind their popularity seemed tosurprise the museum staff when they were fed backafter the project.

The most interesting example of this can be seen inthe popularity of the honey bees which received 5 votesduring the group object handling sessions. By spendingtime researching current issues regarding the decline ofbees and the contributions bees can be seen to make tous as a society, the prisoner that chose to championthem was able to find information that served as a‘hook’ to spark interest and discussion from the peoplehe was presenting to. The feedback received from theprisoners explaining their reasons for choosing the beesas their favourite object surprised many of the museumstaff however, one quote in particular challenged anystereotypical views they might have held.

All the objects symbolised important aspectsof life, but the bees suggest something of our

responsibilities towards future generations. (Prisoner Participant)

The focus on the future, and the level of awarenessof the needs of other people were both areas that themuseum staff had not considered prisoners in a highsecurity prison would be concerned about.

The most popular object with the prisoners wasthe broken verge escapement watch which receivedeight votes. I selected this object as I hoped theprisoners would explore the idea of whether an objectstill has value if it can no longer fulfil its originalpurpose. Interestingly, many of the prisoners saw it asan advantage that the watch was broken as it allowedthem to see the detail and aesthetic quality of themechanism inside, which would otherwise have beenhidden from them. An area of focus with the watch

was the name engraved on it.There was much discussion aboutwhether this would be the nameof the maker or the ownerhowever, what this level ofpersonalisation created was anappreciation of the skills requiredof the maker to produce such anitem.

I liked the intricate design onthe back of the timepiece,plus the way the mechanismon the back is also ondisplay. (Prisoner quote)

The museum staff weregenerally surprised at the focus on the aestheticqualities of the watch as an object and impressed thatthe comments received made little mention of theobject being broken.

The concept of what the public may think alsomade an impact on the prisoner participants themselvesat several points during the project. As a result ofexisting damage from years of use within educationsessions at the museum, the ancient Egyptian Shabtiunfortunately broke while being unwrapped by one ofthe prisoners. The collective sense of horror that ranthrough the group made it clear just how much theopportunity to participate in the project meant to theindividuals and fear at the potential for this incident toruin future engagement with the museum. Interestinglythey had two main concerns as a result of this incident.The first was whether I would ‘get in trouble’ with themuseum and as a consequence cancel the rest of theproject. The second concern was how the museum,and consequently the public, would perceive the object

11. FineCellWork. (2013). ‘Stitching a Future.’ Retrieved 15/10/2013, from http://www.finecellwork.co.uk/about_us/mission_and_vision.

In general, themuseum staff wereinitially confused bysome of my choicesof museum objects,

particularly theWorld War one

postcard.


getting broken, as they did not want the museum staffto think they had not valued the objects or appreciatedthe opportunity to have access to them.

During the process of writing the informationpanel to accompany the final cabinet, a discussionensued about how much emphasis should be placed onthe fact that the work was created by serving prisoners.Some of the participants wanted to play on the fact andgo along with several stereotypes such as including barsacross the text and changing the name of the project tosomething ‘more prison sounding’, in order to play topeople’s fascination with the hidden world of prison asportrayed by the press. Other participants stronglyobjected to this idea and felt it undermined the wholeconcept behind the project. They wanted to avoidmentioning prison at all, and have the worked viewedand valued by the public in the same way as any othercommunity project would be.

The one area all theparticipants were in agreementon was the sense of pride felt athaving their work displayed in themuseum. This was reflected incomments made in the diariesthey kept, as well as in the focusgroup evaluation at the end ofthe project, where the feedbackfrom one participant was;

I have to say that the cabinethas to be the high point ofthe project. To see your workdisplayed and knowing thatit’s going to be somewhere near, in our localmuseum that is just amazing. To know thatsomebody may actually, like, appreciate yourwork. (Participant quote)

This also raised the idea of the degree of trust theparticipants were placing in the museum in terms ofputting their work up for public scrutiny and believingthat it would be presented in a positive light. This wasalso reflected in the diary entries of several participants.

Hopefully the exhibiting of the cabinet ofcuriosity and the catalogue will go well,generate interest and change a few ideasabout the kind of thing prisoners get up toand are capable of learning/ achieving. (Participant quote)

This idea seemed to stem from theacknowledgement of the amount of trust the museumwere placing in them, as prisoners, by allowing them tohave access to the museum objects, particularly themore delicate and fragile ones. In many ways this

should hopefully alleviate the concerns any museumstaff may have about future projects.

When the cabinet was finally exhibited in themuseum, the project was presented as a case studyrather than as an exhibition, as this ensured moreinformation could be given about why the project hadtaken place and the potential value that could begained from it. The museum was proud of thecollaboration with the prison so wanted to celebratethe success of the project and share it openly with thepublic rather than hide it for fear of a negativereception. In many ways it is this confidence inpresenting the work that has inspired so much positiveinterest from those who have seen it. From the initialfeedback the museum has received regarding thecabinet the overall reaction seems to be a sense ofshock followed by a great deal of intrigue. Shock firstof all that the museum would actively seek to deliver

outreach in a high securityprison, followed by disbelief thatthe cabinet itself could havebeen built by prisoners at HMPWakefield. Overall where peoplehave had something to say aboutthe cabinet or the project it hasbeen to ask questions ratherthan pass any sort of negativecomment. As a result of thispositive reception, the decisionhas been made to create a pageon the museum’s website toshare additional informationabout the project as a more in

depth case study, to hopefully answer some of thequestions raised already and signpost the project toothers using the website. This will also provide aplatform to share with the public how the findingsfrom the research are being disseminated and receivedin both the criminal justice sector and the museumstudies world.

In addition to the display of the cabinet theprisoner-made artefacts that directly link to themuseum objects have been integrated into the museumcollection, by being added as ‘derived items’. Thismeans that the prison project adds to the existinginterpretation available for the objects and becomespart of the individual museum object’s story.Consequently, whenever that particular museum objectis searched for in the future by a member of the public,the What’s it Worth project will be highlighted. This willhopefully help to create a lasting legacy for the projectoutside the timescale for the research itself.

From the outset it has always been the museum’sintention that this project would pave the way for alonger term relationship to be developed betweenthemselves and the prison, so that future research into

The one area all theparticipants were inagreement on wasthe sense of pridefelt at having theirwork displayed in

the museum.


potential social benefits can be continued. Therefore, ithas always been the plan to feedback the public’sopinions of the project to the prisoners thatparticipated and the wider population in HMPWakefield. As more feedback is gathered and collated,a display will be developed in the forthcoming monthsand taken into the prison to highlight the positive waythe work has been received. This brings the project fullcircle back to the original aim of the research which wasto explore the effect on levels of subjective wellbeing ofprisoners who had access to museum objects andactivities inspired by them. It also highlights a cycle thatcan be developed through using the museum as a lensto critically analyse and acknowledge positive workbeing achieved in prisons, and to propose changes andimprovements that can be made in the future. Ifreceiving feedback from the public can motivateprisoners to engage further with activities delivered bythe museum, can feeding this back to the publicthrough the museum provide the public with a feelingthat they can make an impact on how their localmuseum engages with the prison community, and more

directly on the prisoners who participate in the work?Additionally, can the empowering effect strengthen thecollaborative relationship between the prison andmuseum and promote an environment where all partiesactively work towards positive prison reforms.

Conclusion

Overall the project can be seen as an example ofworking towards an area of secondary desistance fromcrime, by establishing a clear link to the community forthe prisoners who participated.12 However, if throughdiscussion alone the various stereotypes about prisonheld by the museum staff were broken down anddispelled, there would appear to be strong evidence tosuggest the potential for the same to be true for thewider museum public. By using the display of theartefacts in the museum to inspire a forum wherequestions can be asked and answered about prison, amore open and honest debate may be possible in thewider public arena.

12. Bilby, C., R. Parkes, et al. (2013). Re-imagining Futures: Exploring Arts Interventions and the Process of Desistance. London, ArtsAlliance.


How do members of the general public create aview of prisons and imprisonment? What resources dothey draw upon in order to produce and sustain theirimage of incarceration? It has been argued that ourview of reality is drawn from a combination of personalexperiences, the experience of intimate and influentialothers that are shared with us, information frominstitutions including the state and political machinery,and also from popular culture.1 As most people havelittle direct contact with prisons but popular culture issaturated with images of crime and punishment,2 it isargued that the public rely to a greater extent on mediarepresentation in order to form their image ofimprisonment.3 As Ray Surrette has described:

[P]eople use knowledge they obtain from themedia to construct a picture of the world, animage of reality on which they base theiractions. This process, sometimes called ‘thesocial construction of reality’, is particularlyimportant in the realm of crime, justice, andthe media.4

In more straightforward terms, Professor DavidWilson has suggested that:

ultimately when we present an image ofprison we shape the public’s expectationabout what prison is like, and what happensinside, of who prisoners are and what theyhave done.5

Just as the role of prisons in society is contested, sothis is reflected in media representations, which mayplay a range of roles including: encouraging regressive

and punitive responses, being concerned with orderand the maintenance of social systems, promotingreform, or presenting a more radical critique.

In relation to order, commentators have seenmedia organizations as a tool of social control, acting inconformity with political and economic institutions.6

Representations of crime, it has been argued, havebeen used in order to generate a climate of fear so as tosoften people up for political and economic marketing.7

For many writers and commentators, mediarepresentations largely reinforce existing, conventionalpenal policy and social power structures. For example,Ray Surette has argued that:

In essence, [media] supplies a large amount ofinformation about specific crimes and conveysthe impression that criminals threaten thesocial system and its institutions, but itprovides little explicit system wide informationto help the public to evaluate or comprehendthe factual descriptive information providedabout individual crimes and cases… Thesemessages translate into support for law-and-order policies and existing criminal justiceagencies.8

Others have gone even further in order to arguethat the representation of prison in the media is oftenmuch worse than the reality, or focusesdisproportionately on the most serious crimes and thisfunctions to prepare viewers for a decline in prisonstandards and an increase in the use of imprisonment.9

In contrast, it has been suggested that the mediamay play a reform function. It has been described thatfictional depictions of prisons shape views by providing

1. Surette, R. (1998) Prologue: Some Unpopular Thoughts about Popular Crime in Bailey, F.Y. & Hale, D.C. (eds) Popular Culture, Crime,and Justice Belmont: West/Wadsworth.

2. Rafter, N. and Brown, M. (2011) Criminology goes to the movies: Crime theory and popular culture New York: New York UniversityPress.

3. Surette, R. (1997) Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice 2nd Edition Belmont: West/Wadsworth.4. Ibid p.1.5. Wilson, D. (2003) Lights, Camera, Action in Prison Report No. 60 p.27-9, p.28. 6. Chomsky, N. (1991) Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda New York: Seven Stories.7. Lee, M. (2007) Inventing fear of crime: Criminology and the politics of anxiety Cullompton: Willan.8. Surette (1997) see n.3 p. 70 and 82.9. See Wilson (2003) see n. 5 and Nellis, M. (2005) Future punishment in American science fiction films in Mason, P. (ed) Captured by the

media: Prison discourse in popular culture Cullompton: Willan p.210-228.

Repression and Revolution:Representations of Criminal Justice and Prisons in

Recent Documentaries Dr Jamie Bennett is Governor of HMP Grendon and Springhill.


an insight into a world that the general public knowlittle about and have little direct experience of, theyprovide a benchmark for acceptable treatment ofprisoners, translate academic and political concerns intodigestible narratives, expose perspectives that are oftenat odds with media and official descriptions, and createempathy with prisoners and prison staff.10 From thisperspective, popular culture is an important resourcefor challenging received wisdoms and encouragingreflection and engagement with debate.

Whilst there is a growing body of work discussingfictional representations of prisons in film andtelevision, in this article I willfocus on two recent examples ofdocumentary representations inthe UK and USA: Her Majesty’sPrison Aylesbury (2013), apopular fly on the walldocumentary and The House ILive in (2012), a feature lengthdocumentary which offers acritique of America’s war ondrugs. Documentaries aboutprisons have been less extensivelycovered in academic literaturethan feature films and TV, but it isargued that they should not beunderestimated in their influenceand the way that they reflectprison discourse in popularculture.

At this stage it is worthnoting that documentaries ingeneral tend to be seen asoffering a degree of authenticityand objective truth by capturingreality. Such ‘truth claims’ arefundamental to both the appealand the influence of documentaries. However, theseclaims are contested.11 Documentary and non-fictionforms in general are creative enterprises. The selectionof subject matter, who and what is recorded and howthat is then arranged into narrative form are allselections that interpret and modify the subject matter,introducing the subjective influence of the author.Documentary forms do not therefore offer truth butinstead a creative representation of reality.

This article will explore documentaryrepresentations of criminal justice and imprisonmentthat offer contrasting perspectives. This will be used inorder to reveal the potential of popular culture to offer

a forum for public discourse about criminal justice, butalso highlight the limitations of operating within asystem of production and distribution that is tied tosocial power structures.

Disorder and order: Her Majesty’sPrison Aylesbury

The hit documentary series Her Majesty’s PrisonAylesbury, two fifty minute films broadcast on ITV1during February 2013, attracted an audience of aroundsix million.12 This was the latest in the Her Majesty’s

Prison series which has includedfilms on the women’s prisonHolloway and the two large localprisons at Wandsworth andManchester. The films purportedto offer close up, fly-on-the-wallstyle documentaries charting thedaily life of prison institutions.

Her Majesty’s PrisonAylesbury had a particular focuson violence and disorder.Prisoners were filmed involved ina hostage incident, smashingcells, undertaking dirty protestsand self-harming. This was alsoaccompanied by CCTV footageof historical incidents ofviolence. Prisoners were filmedtalking in a macho way aboutviolence, gang conflict and theneed for self-preservation. ThisBoschian, dystopian vision ofprison life was summed up byone prisoner who shouted as hewalked past a camera: ‘welcometo Hell’. The voiceovers reinforce

this view describing the prisoners as murderers, rapistsand drug dealers, who are ‘the most dangerous anddisruptive 18-21 year olds in the country’. Many of thestaff comments used also confirmed this image ofprisoners, with one describing that prisoners have‘morals and principles [that] are completely different’.The young prisoners are depicted as ‘feral’,13 out ofcontrol, a volatile risk to everyone that they come intocontact with. They are represented as exactly thepeople who should be excluded from society. They donot share the values of ‘law abiding’ citizens. Throughthe foregrounding of violence, the film consciouslyand consistently engages in a process of constructing

10. Wilson, D. and O’Sullivan, S. (2004) Images of Incarceration: Representations of Prison in Film and Television Drama Winchester:Waterside Press.

11. Winston, B. (2008) Claiming the real II: Documentary: Grierson and beyond Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 12. See http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/feb/19/tv-ratings-her-majestys-prison accessed on 29 October 2013.13. Sim, J. (2009) Punishment and prisons: Power and the carceral state London: Sage

Documentariesabout prisons havebeen less extensivelycovered in academic

literature thanfeature films and TV,but it is argued thatthey should not beunderestimated intheir influence andthe way that they

reflect prisondiscourse in popular

culture.


prisoners as ‘others’ or ‘some form of ‘folk devil’ uponwhom the ills of society can be hung’.14

The popular media clamoured in the way onemight expect. For example under the headline ‘HMPhouses animals’, The Sun reported that ‘Viewers havevoiced concerns over ITV’s Her Majesty’s Prison —Aylesbury, calling for ‘out of control’ inmates to neverbe released’.15 The report went on to record socialmedia commentary about ‘animals [that] cannot berehabilitated’, ‘scum bags’, and ‘hood rats’ being heldin a jail that was ‘too soft’.

It is right to acknowledge that the prison itself hasbeen through a period of problems, with criticalinspection reports citing high levels of violence amongstprisoners and poor levels of activity.16 However, themost recent report noted that the decline in theperformance of the prison hadbeen reversed in most areas butthat: ‘Aylesbury has a grimreputation, perhaps not helpedby a recent TV documentary’.17

The Inspectorate report placedgreater context to the incidentsof violence, stating:

Aylesbury held some youngmen whose behaviour wasvery challenging and otherswho were very vulnerable —and plenty who were both.Holding them all safely wasa challenge. Most prisonersdid feel safe at the time ofthe inspection, and levels ofviolence had reduced since the short-followup inspection and were now comparable withother similar establishments — although thatis by no means low enough.

The Inspection report offers context andperspective, giving a more sober perspective on bothindividual prisoners and the organisation. This is abalance that the film lacks.

In contrast to how prisoners were represented andperceived, the staff came in for praise in the press,including The Telegraph, which contrasted the ‘caged,

largely uneducated, physically strong, sometimespsychologically fragile young men’ with staff whoappeared ‘a generally decent bunch, intent on trying tochange the inmates’ destructively ground in codes ofbehaviour’.18 Prison staff are shown attempting tocalmly resolve problems, facing up to terrible risks andhidebound by restrictions placed upon them. They arethe ‘thin blue line’ protecting society from themarauding hoards contained within.

The most recent Inspection report was more mixedin its observations of staff. It acknowledgedimprovements and the generally ‘friendly’ relationshipsbetween staff and prisoners, but did also note that afew staff ‘had an indifferent and unhelpful attitude’,and that there were some concerns regarding the useof force and disciplinary measures. This cultural tension

is not openly explored in thedocumentary and instead thestaff selected are largely positiveand humane. This acts to obscurethe challenges that theInspectorate highlighted whilstalso exaggerating the differencebetween the heroic, decent staffand the feral prisoners.

The documentary strategiesand representations of staff andprisoners carry an ideologicalpayload intended to deliver animpact on viewers’ perceptions.Richard Sparks has argued thatthe way prisoners are perceivedcan create and sustain morepunitive approaches in criminal

justice:

Where offenders are viewed as morenumerous, more threatening, less corrigibleand, perhaps, less akin to ourselves, thenpriorities accordingly tend to focus ondeterrence and secure containment.19

The approach of this documentary is aimed atsustaining and legitimising punitive ‘law and order’politics and high levels of imprisonment. It presents animage that detaches violence from individual life

14. Warr, J. (2012) Afterword in Crewe, B. and Bennett, J. (eds) The Prisoner Abingdon: Routledge p. 142-8.15. Available at http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/4803609/twitter-outrage-over-violent-prisoners-on-itv-show-her-

majestys-prison.html accessed on 16 October 2013.16. HM Inspectorate of Prisons (2011) Report of an unannounced short follow-up inspection of HMYOI Aylesbury 3 – 6 May 2011 London:

HMCIP available at http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/inspectorate-reports/hmipris/prison-and-yoi-inspections/aylesbury/aylesbury-2011.pdf accessed on 27 October 2013.

17. HM Inspectorate of Prisons (2013) Report of an unannounced inspection of HMYOI Aylesbury 2-12 April 2013 London: HMCIPavailable at http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/inspectorate-reports/hmipris/prison-and-yoi-inspections/aylesbury/aylesbury-2013.pdf accessed on 27 October 2013.

18. Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/9878441/Her-Majestys-Prison-Aylesbury-ITV-review.html accessed on 16 October 2013.

19. Sparks, R. (2007) The politics of imprisonment in Jewkes, Y. (ed) Handbook on Prisons Cullompton: Willan p.73-94).

The documentarystrategies and

representations ofstaff and prisonerscarry an ideologicalpayload intended todeliver an impact

on viewers’perceptions.


histories, institutional and social context, inviting theviewer to condemn the action without attempt tounderstand. It also suggests that the right people are inprison and the establishment is keeping the viewer safefrom the harm and havoc they would create outside. Bytaking such an approach it is supporting a case forexisting policies and use of imprisonment, excludingalternative voices.

‘A Holocaust in slow motion’:The House I Live in20

Critical or radical criminology seeks to situatecriminal justice and imprisonment in its wider socialcontext, asking questions about its role in power andinequality. Such work often callsattention to the over-representation of the poor andminority ethnic communities inthe criminal justice net whilstsimultaneously illustrating thatharms created by the powerful,such as financial andenvironmental harms, fall outsidethe ambit of criminal justice. Thisschool of thought suggests thatcriminal justice is one of themeans through which powerstructures are created,maintained and legitimised. As aresult, those who share theseviews often call for dramaticchange including abolishingimprisonment, whilst also callingfor wider social change. Thehouse I live in is an example of a film that brings justsuch a critical perspective into popular culture.

The house I live in is a polemical documentaryattacking America’s ‘War on drugs’. It is made byEugene Jarecki and won a Grand Jury Prize at theSundance Film Festival in 2012. It follows on fromJarecki’s successful films presenting critical liberalaccounts of recent political history (The trials of HenryKissinger, 2002; Reagan, 2011), capitalist economics(Freakonomics, 2010) and contemporary Americanforeign policy (Why we Fight, 2005).

The main argument of the film is that the ‘War ondrugs’ has been ineffective in reducing drug misuse andhas had a devastating impact on communities andcriminal justice institutions. The film argues that theimpact has fallen particularly heavily on black andminority ethnic communities. The impact is presentedas reverberating through generations. It is also

suggested that criminal justice institutions includingpolice, courts and prisons are creaking under theeconomic and emotional weight of the work. In otherwords, the film represents a ‘crisis of legitimacy’21 wherethe system has chronically failed to provide a sense ofjustice to those who operate it, those who are subjectto it and those on whose behalf it is provided.

However, the film goes further in order to revealhow the ‘War on drugs’ is deeply rooted in structures ofpower and inequality. The criminalisation of drugs is setin historical context, suggesting that this has been usedin the past as a way of problematizing migrant andminority groups in America such as Chinese (opium),Mexicans (marijuana) and the urban black population(crack). These arguments are pushed to their furthest

limit, by suggesting that thetargeting of minority populationscan be understood as havingcommon features with theprocess through whichcommunities move towardsgenocide. In one interview in thefilm, the creator of The Wire,David Simon asserts that ‘Thedrug war is a Holocaust in slowmotion’.

The film also argues that thepowerful are sustained by the‘War on drugs’, politicallythrough punitive populism andeconomically through wealthcreated as a result of thecommercialisation of criminaljustice. The arguments that thefilm presents are familiar within

critical criminology, concerned as they are with issues ofpower and inequality. However, the presentation ofthese arguments in an accessible, popular form isunusual and Jarecki has intentionally crafted a spacewhere such arguments can be articulated and heard byan audience outside of academia.

A number of methods are deployed in the film inorder to convey the arguments. These include personaltestimonies, expert statements, statistical inter-titlesand found footage. The personal testimonies areprovided by people caught up in drugs and crime. Thisincludes prisoners, family members, and professionalssuch as police, a prison manager and a judge. Thesetestimonies perform a function in deconstructing andchallenging the conventional justifications forcontemporary drug policies. The interviews withprisoners and family members reveal the problems ofpoverty, family dysfunction and lack of opportunity that

20. The analysis of this film was originally published as Bennett, J. (2013) Film review: The House I live in (2012) in Race and Justice 3(2)p.159-62.

21. Cavadino, M., Dignan, J. and Mair, G. (2013) The penal system: An introduction fifth edition London: Sage p.22.

It also suggeststhat the right

people are in prisonand the

establishment iskeeping the viewersafe from the harmand havoc theywould create

outside.


have shaped their destinies. As a result they humanisethese people and reveal the complexity and ambiguityof their circumstances. The interviews with criminaljustice professionals serve to reveal the frustrations andfutility of their work as they describe the unwinnablenature of the ‘War on drugs’. Together, the testimoniesoffer an account that is presented as a crediblechallenge to the legitimacy of current American policyand practice.

The factual inter-titles present statistics of immensesize, with numbers that are shocking. For example:

Since 1971 the War on Drugs has cost over$1 trillion and resulted in more than 45 millionarrests… During that time,illegal drug use hasremained unchanged.

And

Today 2.7 million children inAmerica have a parentbehind bars… Thesechildren are more likely to beincarcerated during theirlifetime than other children.

These factual titles aresituated within personal stories,inviting the viewer to feel thedepth of the issues as well astheir almost unimaginablescale.

The documentary approachesdeployed are used in order toconvince and persuade the viewer.The content of the argument is polemic, drawing uponcritical criminology, providing a stage for perspectivesthat are not prominent in mainstream debate. As aresult they are vulnerable to criticism and attack asextreme. The filmic techniques attempt to neutralisesuch criticisms. By drawing upon multiple perspectives,including criminal justice professionals and experts, thefilm presents itself as credible and reasonable,repositioning the arguments as accepted byknowledgeable, conventional and mainstream people.The methods deployed also mix both factual materialand emotional impact; informing and engaging theviewer. Of course, the film does take a particularperspective: the interviewees are deliberately selected,the facts are carefully chosen and the film advocatesrather than investigates. However, the documentarytechniques are important in obscuring this and makingthe material digestible.

Conclusion

This article has explored two documentary filmsabout crime, criminal justice and prisons. Those filmshave contrasting aims and ideologies; one reinforcingand legitimating the status quo, whilst the other offersa radical critique. Yet both, as with non-fictionrepresentations generally, make ‘truth claims’. Theirstyle, techniques, and subject matter attempt topackage them as offering authentic and credibleaccounts. By deconstructing these films, it is possible toreveal that documentaries do not provide an objectivetruth but instead are creative treatments of reality,adopting particular perspectives, ideas and values.

It is perhaps not surprisingthat two such contrasting andcompeting visions should beproduced at the present time. Ithas been argued that recentyears have seen a loosening ofthe grip of popular punitivenessand the appeal of an ever-expanding prison population. Ithas been proposed that there arethree primary reasons for this.22

The first is that there is a growingbody of evidence that questionsthe effectiveness ofimprisonment and insteadsuggests that it may be harmfulto society as a whole. Second,declining rates of crime,particularly serious violent crime,across developed nations hasmeant that there is diminishingpolitical capital from tough

rhetoric. Third, the financial crisis of 2008 andsubsequent economic crisis has meant that theapproaches of the past are no longer affordable. At thismoment, therefore the dominant ideas have come tobe weakened and there is an opening for an alternativeperspective. In this context, The house I live in could beseen as a cultural expression of this questioning and itsproduction an indication of the potential for change. Incontrast, Her Majesty’s Prison Aylesbury could bedescribed as bolstering the dominant ideas of law andorder, maintaining the status quo of large scaleimprisonment. These two films illustrate how issues ofcrime, criminal justice and imprisonment are contestedin real time not only in politics, academia andprofessional practice, but also in popular culture.

The products of popular culture do not simply existin isolation, but instead interact with viewers and arealso distributed through organisations that themselves

22. Cullen, F., Jonson, C., and Stohr, M. (2014) The American prison: Imagining a different prison Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Of course, the filmdoes take aparticular

perspective: theinterviewees are

deliberatelyselected, the factsare carefully chosen

and the filmadvocates ratherthan investigates.


are implicated in wider webs of social power. Viewersexercise some agency, they pick what they watch andthat may reflect preconceived ideas and beliefs.23 Theyalso interpret and engage with the ideas represented.However, the structure of the media is also important.It is worth noting that the more conservative film, HerMajesty’s Prison Aylesbury was broadcast on amainstream terrestrial television channel, ITV1, to anaudience of six million, whilst The house I live in couldonly be seen on a limited theatrical run, on a smalldigital channel, BBC4, or on DVD or download. Thisillustrates that the major media channels with instantaccess to large audiences both promote and reflectdominant values whilst alternative voices are pushed tothe margins, often trying to generate an audiencethrough diverse and dispersed outlets. The entanglednature of prisons, the media and social power can beseen in this inter-relationship.

Media representation is essential to understandingthe interaction between the prison and the public. Thedocumentary form has a particular resonance forviewers due to the claims it makes for authenticity andtruth, even though such claims need to be understoodas a function of form whereas the images and ideaspresented are in fact creative and selective. Therepresentation of the prison is a means through whichthe contested role of crime, criminal justice andimprisonment is played out. Popular culture isimportant in creation and maintenance of thelegitimacy of the existing system through thedissemination and propagation of ideas about what theprison is for, who is being detained and why they arethere. However, there is also a role for the media in thedeconstruction and challenge of dominant ideas, albeitone that is muted and faint, but nonetheless important.

23. King, A. and Maruna, S. (2006) the function of fiction for a punitive public in Mason, P. (ed) Captured by the Media: Prison discourse inpopular culture Cullompton: Willan p.16-30.

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Introduction

Nowadays, one hears a great deal of talk aboutthe need to legitimize the criminal justice systemby bringing it closer to the public via programmeswhich create bridges between ‘communities’ and‘offenders’ as a route to supporting the latter’sreintegration to society. Direct participation incriminal justice by citizens represents a positivestep in re-socialising justice, it is argued.1

Furthermore, it asserts the community’s interest inavoiding offender recidivism (reoffending), andholds the police, prison and probation services toaccount for the large amounts of public moneyspent on their operations. Yet, the belief thatbringing ‘law abiding’ and ‘offending’ citizenstogether will foster mutual recognition orintegration rests on unexamined assumptionsthat social solidarity and interaction amongcitizens have been unaffected by rising socialinequality and successive moral panics about lawand order in recent decades.

There is a particular irony in all of this because,contrary to the nostalgic political visions that areconjured up by the ‘Big Society’ project, the symbolicand material significance of the public sphere has beenundermined by advocates of marketization and theprimacy of private interests as the driving forces of‘society’. For example, the self same proponents of theBig Society equally assert that one tier of socialorganisation, civil society, can only be promoted ifanother tier of social organisation, the welfare state, isdemoted.2 Consequently, the apparent inconsistenciesin the Big Society/Small State agenda can be reconciledonly as part of an ideological project for supporting apreferred version of community comprising the so-called ‘law abiding majority’, with the goals of radicalprivatisation of public welfare systems. Such thinkingreflects an ideologically preferred, post-Thatcheritevision in which society is best served by a return to whatthe Conservative MP, Jeremy Hunt, coined as‘collaborative individualism’ which is exercised through

the primary social institutions of family, kinship andcommunity. In this ideological world, the operativeconcept of ‘community’ is underpinned by assumptionsabout the inherent benevolence and toleration ofcitizens, including towards offenders and outsiders, aswell as suppositions that social goods such as securityand property rights are consensually shared and notsubject to conflicting claims between groups.

This short article is part of a longer project forbuilding a case for a renewed theory and practice ofcivic and local activism that is vested in socialdemocratic principles such as social justice, economicredistribution and the assumption of citizenship rightsby disenfranchised groups, including offenders.3 Assuch, it is necessarily concerned with relationshipsbetween what might be broadly conceived as ‘social’and ‘criminal’ forms of justice. In particular, this paperreflects on the taken-for-granted suppositions inpolitical rhetoric that promoting community activism asa method of reintegrating marginalised groups is self-evidently beneficial and efficacious. As it cannot coverall of the arguments, the following discussion considersways in which concepts of the ‘public sphere’ and civilsociety have been redefined to equate with individualresponsibility, property ownership and qualified accessto citizenship rights in ways that are consistent withneoliberal ideology. It concludes that acknowledgingthe barriers restricting communities and publics frommutual recognition is the first step to reclaiming thepublic sphere in the interests of critical citizenship.

The article firstly explores theories of the publicsphere as a communicative space where citizens cometogether to discover common interests and toparticipate in public debate, decision-making andsocial action.4 Next, it examines how, from the 1980s,Conservative, New Labour and latterly the Coalitiongovernments succumbed to the economic andpolitical dominance of market fundamentalism andcontributed to a decline in support for the social state,collective welfare and security for all. Thirdly, itdiscusses how the interests of the public good becameequated with those of the ‘free’ market, which has

1. Maruna, S. and LeBel, T. (2003) ‘Welcome home? Examining the ‘re-entry court’ concept from a strengths-based perspective’, WesternCriminology Review 4, 91-107.

2. Norman, J (2010) The Big Society: The Anatomy of the New Politics. Buckingham: University of Buckingham Press.3. Carrington, K., Ball, M., O’Brien, E., & J. Tauri (eds) (2012) Crime, Justice and Social Democracy: International Perspectives. London:

Palgrave Macmillan.4. Habermas, J. (1992) Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Oxford, Polity Press.

How the public sphere was privatized andwhy civil society could reclaim it

Mary S Corcoran is a Lecturer in Criminology at Keele University.


strengthened socio-economic barriers and inhibitedinteraction and recognition among citizens. Theconcluding discussion makes constructive proposalsfor putting social inclusiveness, citizenship rights andincorporating the voices of disenfranchised people atthe centre of rebuilding just systems of socialreintegration.

Refeudalisation of the public sphere

My starting point is taken from Jurgen Habermas’s(1962/1992) Structural Transformation of the PublicSphere, where he gave theoretical shape to the notionof the Bourgeois Public Sphere as a forum in which‘political participation is enacted through the mediumof talk’ in modern societies.According to Habermas, thepublic sphere is given over to theactivities of civil society wherecitizens publicise (‘bring to thepublic’) their ideas and engage indeliberative politics about thecommon good and democracy.Crucially, it fosters anindependent civil society whichought to be separate from eitherstates or markets:

Thus, this concept of thepublic sphere permits us tokeep in view the distinctionsbetween state apparatuses,economic markets, anddemocratic associations,distinctions that are essentialto democratic theory (ibid.).5

Although it is a utopian proposition, Habermas didnot claim that the public sphere is an oasis of autonomyand freedom from dominance by political or corporateinterests. Rather his thesis was concerned with thecontraction of ‘critical publicity’ from its origins in theEnlightenment to the dominance of corporate influenceon the state and the concentrated ownership of themass media by the mid-20th century. Thistransformation, characterised as the ‘refeudalisation ofthe public sphere’, hastened the decline in democracyto the degree that private interests assumed directpolitical functions, in the process eroding distinctionsbetween state, markets and civil society.

Habermas advanced his criticism of ‘privateinterests’ in relation to mass, mediatized politics, which,

he thought, allowed the manipulation of publicdiscourse and the eventual dominance of eliteperspectives. In a similar vein, I apply the concept of‘private interests’ to refer to the activities of corporateand non-profit agencies, including community andcharitable organisations, who are being actively invitedinto a penal services marketplace, with consequentimplications for eroding their autonomy and criticaldisposition towards institutionalized injustices.6

Habermas’ study stopped at the 1950s, and thereforehis theory does not encompass the altered conditions ofthe early 21st century. Therefore, the followingdiscussion argues that critical efforts to reclaim the‘public’ sphere as an arena of citizen discourse, socialaction and independence will need to contest the

colonisation of the public sphereby private interests since the1980s.

Privatised citizenry

The first shift relates to theneoliberal construction of the‘public’ and the ‘public interest’as coterminous with the privateaspirations and consumeristclaims to entitlements which mayonly be legitimately claimed byeconomically active consumer-citizens. This has entailedsecuring an ideological consensuswith strategic sections of thepublic in favour of bracketing offwelfarist notions of the commongood from individual interests.

From the 1980s, much of the capitalist world wascaptured by a political credo whose tenets refuted thenotion of social democracy based on redistributivejustice as unsuitable to the conditions of late modernity.Some more fundamentalist versions of neoliberalism,influenced by Friedrich Hayek7 and the Chicago Schooleconomists led by Milton Freidman, postulated thatstate welfarism was antithetical to individual and civilliberties (and hence inimical to the public interest),because it represented an oppressive statist response tosocial problems such as crime, poverty and socialexclusion. The argument ran that public welfare oughtto be legitimately curtailed to fostering the capacity ofindividuals but welfare should not become a permanentand universal feature, lest it deprive citizens offreedoms to determine their own fortunes. It followedfrom this logic that public welfare programmes that

5. Fraser, N. (1990) Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text, 25/26, p57.6. Corcoran MS. (2011) Dilemmas of Institutionalisation of the Penal Voluntary Sector in England and Wales. Critical Social Policy 31: 30-52.7. Hayek, F. (1960/2009) The Constitution of Liberty. Abingdon, England: Routledge, p227.

Although it is autopian proposition,Habermas did notclaim that the

public sphere is anoasis of autonomyand freedom from

dominance bypolitical or

corporate interests.


pursued equality for the majority were misconceivedbecause such projects stifled individual liberty:

If government wants not merely to facilitatethe attainment of certain standards byindividuals but to make certain that everybodyattains them it can only do so by deprivingindividuals of any choice in the matter.8

This view of the inherently disabling effects of statewelfarism was seized upon by the New Right, and laterthe New Labour Blairites, as an opportune pretext forimplementing (and talking about implementing)welfare minimalism through ‘modernising’ the state.Proponents of modernisation proposed that thebreakdown of welfare universalism was historicallyinevitable, ushering in thenecessity for a new socialcontract wherein citizens wouldundertake greater levels ofpersonal responsibility for theirown security and welfaredemands. In office, theConservatives, then Labour andlater the Conservative-LiberalDemocrat coalition, attacked thepublic sector as anti-individualistic and restrictive ofcitizen choice, asserting thatwelfare states had curbedcitizens’ material aspirations andcreated a permanently helplessunderclass, thus hastening thedecline of Western economicadvantage. The challenge was no less than torestructure state economies in ways which were moreamenable to global service markets, including securityand criminal justice concerns, and remouldinggovernments’ relationships with self-governing, self-reliant active citizens.9

The conflation of the public sphere with the‘open market’

One of the cultural side effects of the neoliberalera has been the exposure of almost every area of socialand personal life to the morality of the market place. Atits essence, marketisation reflects an economic modelof social exchange which has become embedded inpolitical agendas for restructuring public services,including criminal justice. The central components of

the marketisation thesis are that individual andorganizational behaviours are governed by rational self-interest, financial incentives and utility. Advocates of themarket revolution, which number the Association ofChief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO)and the Confederation of British Industry, share theposition that this is not simply about applying economiclevers such as fines or competition to reform publicservices, but a project for instituting deep changes inthe values and responsibilities of citizens and all formsof social organisation, whether statutory, charitable orcorporate.10

The argument that breaking up the public sectormonopoly would institute radical changes in criminaljustice was initially advanced in the Carter report whichheld that ‘private and voluntary sectors’ are catalysts of

modernisation whose energy andinnovation would create ‘a newapproach to… ‘break[ing] downthe silos of prison and probationand ensur[ing] a better focus onmanaging offenders’.11 Thisproposition was also justified as ashift towards enabling thehuman resources of thecommunity and voluntary sectorand investment capital held bythe private sector to be exploitedmore systematically for socialends. As a consequence, theprivatisation of public services ishailed as a democraticachievement which offers greaterconsumer power to citizens.

Implementing these goals requires that the protectiveand regulatory state gives way to light touch self-regulation; the welfare state steps back to assume anew role of state as auctioneer of public goods andservices; and notions of citizenship based on the socialcontract secede to those based on consumercitizenship.

Philanthrocapitalism

A sign of recent changes is the way in which theopen marketplace has now become a theatre forstaging the corporate responsibility of Habermasianprivate agencies, including profit-making andphilanthropic trusts, which seek to legitimate theirpublic-ness in areas hitherto equated with socialownership and control. For example, the surge in

8. Ibid. Emphasis added9. arvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10. ACEVO (2006) Beating Reoffending: The Third Sector Solution. London. ACEVO/Rainer Foundation.11. Carter, Lord Patrick (2003) Managing Offenders, Reducing Crime. London: Home Office, foreword.

One of the culturalside effects of theneoliberal era hasbeen the exposureof almost every area

of social andpersonal life to themorality of themarket place.

corporate philanthropy in the aftermath of the bankingcrisis in 2007-8 represented a conscious attempt by theorganised corporate sector to reclaim its publiclegitimacy and demonstrate its social relevance andresponsibility. Six years on, the practical and moralnecessity of fusing capital with public welfare ismanifested in the logic that having reached levels ofirredeemable strain, compounded by the economiccrash and its aftermath, non-profit and private sectorinvolvement is all the more necessary to rescue thewelfare state. What is now represented as a collectiveendeavour (‘we’re all in this together’) involves no lessthan an audacious reshaping of the State from socialprovider to subcontractor of public services andinstitutions, alongside a project for rewriting theremaining terms of the welfarecontract.

The paradigm shift that isbeing proposed here can beexpressed in terms of a newtriangulation in the relationshipsbetween the state, the citizenand the market. This isilluminated in the report, OpenAccess: Delivering Quality andValue in our Public Services,which was published by theConfederation of BritishIndustry.12 That report laid out thebusiness case for putting out£278 billion worth of publicservices to market competitionand concluded that theprivatisation of the remainingpublic sector should be radicallyexpanded and accelerated. Published in September,2012, the language and findings of the CBI reportclosely resonated with the government’s broader fiscalprogramme and also predated by a mere four monthsthe outcome of the Transforming Rehabilitationconsultation which gave the clearest indication to dateof the intention to outsource up to two-thirds of theProbation service’s caseload. At the time of writing, thisschedule has been put back until May 2014, ostensiblyon the grounds of ongoing technical issues withpayment and commissioning arrangements. However,the delay is more likely to result from the groundswellof criticism as to its complexity and opacity fromsources as diverse as the Institute for Government, theCommons’ Public Accounts Committee, the Ministry’sown research and potential contractors. Yet theforeword of Open Access, written by the CBI’s Chief

Executive, John Cridland, lays out the claim that thetransfer of public resources to private interests isultimately in the public interest:

The CBI believes that open public servicemarkets, with providers drawn from thepublic, private and third sectors, can squarethis circle and lead to an increase in quality,choice and value for money. The case for thisagenda has been made more difficult byrecent, high profile failings in the privatesector. Business has to respond to these publicconcerns and rebuild trust through sustainedbehaviour change and consistent delivery ofresults… Delivering savings ‘. . . will require

new skills on behalf ofgovernment tometamorphose from directprovider into a marketmanager. It will need a clearvision from the governmentabout the markets in whichit is prepared to see an endto the state monopoly ofprovision.13

Community and penality:having it both ways

The third elision of ‘private’and ‘public’ interest relates to theshifting of the public sphere froma zone where citizens deliberateand act in pursuit of the common

good to a collection of private associations andcompeting interests consistent with the neoliberalimaginary of individual self-enterprise and responsibility.Whilst a full account for this phenomenon is outsidethe remit of this article, one facet of this shift relates tothe privileged civic status that is afforded in politicalrhetoric and policy to the self-governing, self-reliant,active and giving citizen. It can at least be observed thatthe rediscovery of the community, firstly by New Labourand then by the Conservative part of the coalition, isentirely consistent with the neoliberal moral economyof citizenship in which volunteers and local interestgroups exercise their consumer rights to influence localcrime, justice and community safety strategies. Equally,the claim that all citizens are nominally free toparticipate in civil activism belies the considerableformal and informal disqualifications that are


12. Confederation of British Industry (2013) Open Access: Delivering quality and value in our public services’ (2013) London:Confederation of British Industry. Foreword.

13. Ibid. Emphasis added.

The paradigm shiftthat is being

proposed here canbe expressed interms of a new

triangulation in therelationships

between the state,the citizen andthe market.


experienced by already marginalised groups who mayseek to organize in the public domain. Such groups, forexample, may comprise offenders, members of ethnicminorities, lesbian, gay and trans-gender people,travelling or homeless people or street-based sexworkers, who have historically experienceddiscrimination, conflict with the forces of law, orexclusionary campaigns by community activists.

Under the Coalition, the era of experimentalismwith alternative community-based disposals hascontinued, but is rooted in authoritarian and punitiveorthodoxies, prison expansion, and the virtualprivatisation of the Probation service. Within weeks ofthe Minister for Justice’sannouncement in February of hissupport for raising up to 50,000volunteers to provide through-the-gate mentoring for everyperson leaving prison or onparole, Chris Grayling confirmedproposals to construct at leastone ‘Titan’ prison with a capacityfor 2,000 prisoners and to extendcapacity in several other prisons.14

By November 2013, theprogramme for outsourcingpublic prisons was temporarilyinterrupted when the Ministry ofJustice withdrew contracts forprivatising three public prisonsfollowing findings ofovercharging by the transnationalcorporation, SERCO, while criticalreports of G4S’s management ofThe Wolds prison led to itsreversion to public control. Sincethen, governmental policycontinues to be underpinned by parallel, contrarypolicies which are aimed at funding more communitybased intervention while expanding the prison estate.This conflict in objectives reveals the fallacious equationat the centre of neoliberal reformist arguments: thatmore alternative programmes based in the communitywill lead to fewer prison places. Official enthusiasm forpenal alternatives will always be conditional on thesurvival of the prison rather than its withering awayfrom disuse or irrelevance.15 Consider, for example, thatBaroness Corston’s recommendation that women’sprisons be replaced within 10 years by community-based local residential centres was immediately stripped

out in the New Labour governmental response to herreport. The recourse to ‘community’ has never beenseriously conceived of as a route to dismantling theideological scaffolding which props up the punishmentof poverty. Rather, successive governments have recastcivil society as an indispensible element in thegovernance of crime from below. This discourse alsorests on the false dichotomy which sacralises the‘community’ as benign and caricaturises public prisonand probation services as malign. But the big policy ideafor transferring the site of custody and monitoring fromprisons to the community may do little more thanfacilitate the transition of offenders from ‘penal hell to

civic purgatory’.16

Reclaiming critical citizenship

In the light of theideologically and socially divisivenature of the previousdevelopments, how might therole of civil society challenge thenexus of marketised andauthoritarian penal interests,rather than be absorbed by it? Isit possible to reconcile the desireto engage citizens in deliberativepolitics with the claims that‘turning offenders around’ canbe facilitated throughinterventionist programmes, evenif provided by and withincommunities? It is reasonable toassume that an obvious startingpoint for any restorative processwould be to facilitate access tobetter economic prospects, legal

equality, civic participation and opportunities to developsocial capital? Yet, civic and legal equality and parity ofopportunity have been undermined by the continuedhollowing out of the citizenship status of thecriminalised under late capitalism. Four decades ofgrowing inequality have laid the foundations for a castesystem which is founded on a moral distinctionbetween ‘citizens’ — whose legal, political and socialexistence, as well as private relationships and claims tobelonging are recognised — and ‘denizens’,17 a termconventionally applied to non-citizens residing in astate, but which is increasingly applicable to groupswho are structurally disqualified from full citizenship or

14. Independent online (2013) Grayling ploughs on with plan for ‘super jail’. March 13 2013.15. Carlen. P. (2012) Against Rehabilitation. For Rehabilitative Justice. Eve Saville Memorial Lecture, Congress Hall, London. November 6,

2012.16. Sim, J. (2013) Exploring ‘the edges of what is possible’: Abolitionist activism and neoliberal austerity. Paper presented to the

conference, ‘Sites of Confinement’, Liverpool John Moores University, March 22 2013.17. Standing, G. (2011) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury Publications.

This conflict inobjectives revealsthe fallacious

equation at thecentre of neoliberal

reformistarguments: thatmore alternative

programmes basedin the communitywill lead to fewerprison places.


on whom preconditions are set on acquiring andexercising agency. The denizen status of ‘offenders’ andformer prisoners has been revealed in recentcontroversies in the UK over the question of theprisoner franchise, as well as restrictions on rights tofamily life through the dispersal of prisoners away fromtheir place of domicile, strip searching, and othersecurity concerns which take precedence over equalityof treatment or habeas corpus. More typically, inclusiontakes the narrower form of economic responsibilisationthrough obligatory participation in occupational andtraining schemes, often provided by for-profit andvoluntary sector contractors, to prepare lawbreakers forentry (often for the first time) into the waged labourforce.

This paper has sketched some trends whichthreaten to restrict the social spaces where criticaldialogue between citizens and denizens might occurand where the ‘law abiding’ might meet the criminal‘other’? However, these are initial points in an ongoingproject for identifying alternative and inclusiveapproaches informed by theories of legal restorationand social and economic reintegration. That processcommences with acknowledging the injustices andforms of objectification that are perpetuated, wittinglyor unintentionally, in endeavours to ‘engage with’criminalised people by examining the profound‘othering’ they are subjected to alongside the persistentdeferral of legal recognition and the foreclosure of theirrights-bearing status.

It may be helpful to identify some activatingconditions based on social solidarity, citizenship andrights if civic efforts to reintegrate criminalised personsare to have a substantive basis. Firstly, critical citizenshipencourages public discourse which challenges thepersonification of ‘offenders’ as primarily sociallydeficient and as subjects of reformation andintervention. Out of the hundreds of policy documents,academic papers and glossy prospectuses produced byfor-profit and charitable providers in recent yearsextolling the virtues of voluntary sector work with

offenders, only a handful have discussed the integrationof offenders or prisoners in terms of their assumption offull citizenship status. Secondly, there is an onus onknowledge producers (such as researchers, advocates,practitioners and policy makers) to highlight (orcontinue to articulate) the consequences of compliancewith instrumental, official valuations of worthy researchbased on favoured ‘evidence-based’ policy orientationsat the expense of the underlying structure of exclusionthrough punishment. In the midst of all the detail aboutwhat does and doesn’t ‘work’, the deeper story aboutthe impact of the complex material and symbolicdisqualifications that apply to criminalised people is lost

Thirdly, questions as to whether the restoration ofrights to individuals with criminal records should beautomatic or qualified processes, are complex andsignificant matters. However, it is necessary to assertthat they are not subject to arbitrary tendencies on thepart of the political Executive to withhold rights fromcriminalised persons as an electoral expediency.Moreover, critical citizenship should be making the casefor socially inclusive and rights-based interpretations ofdesistance theory.

A programme of community justice based oneconomic, legal and political inclusion highlights thesocial basis of integration. It provides civil society actorswith an alternative platform to narrow interpretationsof desistance theories. The proliferation of programmesthat help offenders to become ‘self-actualising’ andrealise their social capital and capacities are subject tocapture by the goals of responsible, self-sufficientcitizenship. The potential success of desistance as acritical practice will rely on the degree of independenceor separation it can establish from neoliberal conceptualframeworks by continuing to emphasise theimportance of tackling structural exclusion. Failure todo so will merely reinforce the paradox of reintegrationwhich simultaneously demands from ‘ex offenders’ thatthey demonstrate self-governance while denying themcapacity to fulfil these imperatives.


Introduction

This essay will analyse the impact of creatingartwork in prison specifically for public display,by assessing the premises and outcomes ofMirrors: Prison Portraits, a self-portrait projectwhich culminated in an exhibition (and film)exhibited at the Scottish National Gallery, 4November 2010 — 26 March 2011. Mirrors, aNational Galleries of Scotland (NGS)Communities Outreach Project, was part ofInspiring Change, an academically evaluatedinitiative led by Motherwell College tomeasure the rehabilitative potential of artsprojects for offenders in five Scottish prisonsduring 2010.

By choosing self-portraits as the artistic form forthe project the NGS Outreach Team foregroundedissues of seeing and being seen and of disclosing andhiding, central aspects of prison life. By asking theparticipants to form their own image of themselvesfor public consumption we gave them the chance toexamine their own life experiences by creativelyconstructing an image, aware that the result wouldneed to communicate with a wide audience. Often,due to the trial process, they were intensely aware ofhow they were regarded by the media and thus thepublic, but little used to self-examination.

The audience’s reactions to the exhibition andthe film provide valuable evidence about this project’sability to change perceptions, and develop a dialoguebetween those inside and those outside prison. Thepotential of this dialogue, sparked by its artisticcatalyst, merits further discussion assessing therehabilitative effect of artistic creativity and also itspublic recognition.

This article explores the positive results of thisproject, on both prisoners and public (includingjudges), and the pointers it offers towards developingfuture artistic initiatives that allow for therapeuticreassessment on both sides.

Identity at Stake‘Sometimes I just want to start again. I wantto be a blank canvas.’Participant, HMP Shotts.Quoted in Mirrors documentary film.1

‘Reciprocally, we imagine ourselves as theobjects of the point of view of others: societyis the ‘mirror’ in which we regulate our‘countenance and behaviour’.’Ian Duncan, Scott’s Shadow:The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh (2007)2

‘Who am I?’ This simple question is central to theself-portrait. The ability to answer this question alsobegins to unlock the door to participation in society.Having a sense of a self that can be described, thatcan be affected by, and that can affect others, iscrucial to acting socially. For the majority of those inScotland’s prisons the means to develop that sense ofself-empowerment and control over one’s life havebeen severely limited.3

The National Galleries of Scotland’s Mirrors:Prison Portraits project sought to offer offenders thecreative means to fashion a self-representation thatwould increase their feeling of self-worth. Fashioningyourself for others’ view is a crucial component ofmodern life. It imaginatively integrates the individualinto the community. What selves are acceptable?Which desires must remain unsatisfied and whichactions avoided? The creation of one self-portraitwithin a pilot arts project may appear to be a limitedendeavour, but the singular experience of learning toform an object of value — a work of art — to beshared with others, using oneself as subject-matter,may be profound. This seems especially so for thosewho have damaged themselves — and who may alsohave damaged others — and are seeking a positiverenewal of their lives.

The history of portraiture has witnessed both thebirth of the idea of a unified, unique personality thatcan be captured as an image, and the disintegrationof that idea of an undivided self. The national artcollection holds portraits by artists from Allan Ramsay

1. National Galleries of Scotland, Mirrors (Art Class), (2010). Director: Lou McLoughlan.2. Duncan, Ian (2007) Scott’s Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 265.3. Unpublished paper by Mike Nellis, former Emeritus Professor, University of Strathclyde, reveals that 70% of those in Scotland’s jails

come from the five most deprived Council wards in the country. Presented as part of an Inspiring Change Training Day, Glasgow CityHalls, Jan 2010.

Artist or Offender?:Braving the Mirror

Robin Baillie is Senior Outreach Officer, National Galleries of Scotland.


to Douglas Gordon that reveal this steady rise of the‘self’ and its subsequent fragmentation and dispersalin contemporary society.

The National Galleries of Scotland’s outreach officersand commissioned artists aimed to use the nationalcollection of portraits as inspiration to aid the process ofthe rehabilitation of offenders. We invited those whoseidentities had been shaped by the designation ‘criminal’,to begin to rebuild their sense of self. Participants wereencouraged to take up the challenge of creating aportrait that reflected themselves and their lives, andtheir ability to project a positive future.

To define the quality that was necessary to bindthe individualised subjects of modernity into afunctioning civil society during the Scottishenlightenment of the 18th-century, moral philosopherand economist Adam Smithdeveloped the concept of‘sympathy’. Late 18th and early19th-century portrait paintings inthe national art collection attestto this concept of mutualrecognition as they display theemergence of a reflective moralphysiognomy at work in thedepictions of the faces of thesitters. The viewer is encouragedto judge the moral and civicworth of his fellow citizen. Thestoic self-command andpropitious self-possessionbeaming from the heroes ofEdinburgh’s ‘Golden Age’ attestto the role of the portrait inconfirming social standing andpromoting merit.

As participants in the five prisons came up againstthe weight of their task to redefine themselvesthrough the process of portraiture, those qualities ofself-command and sympathy were tested over andover again by those who often spoke of ‘never havingthought about themselves’. The offenders revealedfeelings about themselves which were often centredon their self-confessed lack of self-awareness or, beingin an empty space, in glaring opposition to theseemingly composed individuals of the historicalportraits staring back at them from National Galleriesof Scotland catalogues. Modern society thrives on thedevelopment of individuals as self-conscious,instrumental projects. Unfortunately, those fromdisadvantaged social groups who have frequentlysuffered from a lack of care, inequality, poverty, pooreducational attainment and the ravages ofunemployment, drugs and crime, are more likely tofeel themselves the victims of circumstances, ratherthan their master.

The Five Projects

In HMP Shotts, long-term prisoners probed anddiscussed a selection of portraits — identifying, forexample, the deep loss and sadness in the eyes of thefading, and alcoholic, ‘Young Pretender’, PrinceCharles Edward Stuart, whose royal status isirretrievably lost. We had actually cut-out his eyes andshown them in isolation from the rest of the portrait,before his identity could be assumed, in order todevelop the observational acuity of the participants.This interpretative analysis allowed the men to getbehind the official masks in these images and tosearch for an emotional understanding of the sitter.We then asked the men to draw their own eyes whilstwearing masks revealing only this feature of their face.

The fact that a drawn, orpainted, image could act as anemotional signpost was aninsight about which the men inHMP Shotts took to heart. Theynow saw themselves as theelusive object of their ownconcerns, mediated through theprocess of making a portraitwith paint and canvas. Theybegan to realise that thetranslation of their thoughts andemotions into painted visualclues; imagery, textures, coloursand tones, was a creativeprocess that they couldmanipulate to have an effect onthemselves and other viewers oftheir work. The self-portrait

allowed them to undertake redemptive work onthemselves as an image, an image that at momentsthey would reject, erase, redo, adapt, struggle over forhours, or subsume in an elaborate metaphor.Metaphors are understandably prevalent in prisoners’artworks, often featuring clocks, labyrinths, masksand symbolic hand-gestures. Prison corridors regularlydisplay figurative images based on prisoners’ strongidentification with the images of certain poster starsfrom popular culture, from rapper Tupac Shakur toChé Guevara.

Creating a self-portrait encouraged theparticipants to deal directly with how they sawthemselves. This seems straightforward, but as thefilm of the project reveals, in this process lay thepossibility of them rehabilitating themselves byexperiencing the connection between what they haddone and their own image, and the possibility ofseeing themselves as someone who could go beyondthis action or event, without erasing it (Figure 1). Asthe academic evaluation of the wider Inspiring

Participants wereencouraged to takeup the challenge ofcreating a portrait

that reflectedthemselves and

their lives, and theirability to project apositive future.


Change project confirms, ‘There is also evidence thatfor many ex�offenders desistance is about personalredemption, not necessarily in the spiritual sense butrather in the sense of finding a way to ‘make good’ ona troubled and troubling past by making a positivecontribution to families or communities now and infuture.’4 This was why the cathartic experience ofknowing that their portraits would be presented tothe public in a national gallery was at once, so testing,and subsequently confirming, for them. As thecurators of the exhibition we had a fantasy of beingable to have a live, webcam relay of the opening nightof the exhibition beamed into the prison for theparticipants to witness at first hand. This didn’thappen but we made sure werelayed the visitor feedback andthe content of the speeches onthe opening night along withother comments by interestedparties who had seen the show.

Those participants who didattend the exhibition opening,following release or having beengranted leave from their openprison, were moved by theexhibition’s reception and werequietly glowing due to theirachievements. A young woman,formerly in HMP Greenock,brought her mother along, andboth were tearful for most ofthe evening because they hadsomething to be proud of. Twoyoung lads recently releasedfrom HM YOI Polmont attended,having never expected to findthemselves on display in an art gallery. They were allthere at the end of the night, almost unable to leave,as they probably wanted to remain in contact with theprecious, positive confirmation that the event wasproviding them. I experienced a similarly profoundmoment at HMP Shotts when on the day before theexhibition’s opening we showed the film to those whohad taken part in it. I could not look at the faces of themen as they saw themselves revealing their thoughtsto director Lou McLoughlan’s camera, but as wewatched I could hear the deep intakes of breath andthe sighs, the majority of the men tearful, motionlessand silent at the end. They recognised what they hadgiven to the film and in doing so had probably beenbraver and more honest in terms of facing themselvesthan many of us, outside prison, will ever be. The

effect of taking part in the project in developing apositive persona, they subsequently informed us, wasimmeasurably greater than the effect of the CognitiveBehaviour Therapy courses offered by the ScottishPrison Service.

Once again the project evaluation report provesthe benefits of public recognition, ‘The publicsuccesses of the participants’ efforts — inperformances and exhibitions before audiences ofsignificant others — opened up new personal andsocial identities (as artists or performers) thatconfirmed the possibility and viability of change inone’s character and identity… participation in the artsprojects seemed to help many prisoners begin to

imagine or envision analternative, appealing,conventional self.’5 For thosetaking part the production of ahard-won self-image was a vitalcatalyst in ‘ceasing to seeoneself as an offender andfinding a more positiveidentity… successfully peelingoff the criminal label thatcriminal justice systems are soeffective at applying.’6

For the short-term womenoffenders in HMP Greenock,gender issues weighed heavily intheir identification with thephotographic portraits ofcontemporary American artistCindy Sherman, and hercompatriot FrancescaWoodman. Sherman’s attemptsto reveal the constriction of

female gender roles pushed towards the grotesque bythe mass-media, were understood by women often atthe mercy of undue male influence over their lives.The positive release they experienced from takingcontrol of the construction of their own images isevident in their imaginative self-portraits, and in thefeedback they communicated to the Inspiring Changeevaluation team (Figure 2).

Young men in HM Young Offenders’ Institutionat Polmont often shied away from depicting their ownfaces and opted to hide behind the logos and labels ofconsumer goods as a means of identifying themselves(Figure 3). Artist Fraser Gray and National Galleriesof Scotland outreach officer Richie Cummingencouraged those taking part to project a cut-out,self-portrait avatar into a real-life location where it

4. Anderson, K., Colvin, S., McNeill, F., Nellis, M., Overy, K., Sparks, R. and Tett, L. (2011) Inspiring Change: Final Project Report of theEvaluation Team, 32. Glasgow: Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow.

5. Ibid. p. 63.6. Ibid. p. 32.

They were all thereat the end of thenight, almost

unable to leave, asthey probably

wanted to remainin contact with theprecious, positiveconfirmation thatthe event wasproviding them.


was then photographed. This re-positioningdemanded awareness on the part of the young menabout how they would be seen by others, whenreleased back into society.

In HMP Barlinnie artist Kevin Reid moved furtherfrom the individualised model of the traditionalportrait, and asked the participants to create scenesand stories for a graphic novel. Caustic prints by theDadaist George Grosz (from the collection of theScottish National Gallery of Modern Art), set the tonefor a set of drawings and storyboards that speakabout the reality of the environments from whichthese short-term prisoners come. The blight of socialdeprivation and the ongoing cycles of violent attackand retaliation are the background to the men’s ironicyet clear-sighted understanding of their crimes andtheir position in society (Figure 4). They are on recordas praising the freedom and responsibility they weregiven by the artist to speak from where they wereactually placed, rather than from a notionallyreformed position. As a result, their work hints at thebleak landscape to which they will return on leavingprison. Their book forms a collective portrait,

animated by a reflective awareness of the paths thattheir own lives have taken in relation to a societalstructure that has done them few favours. As such, itasks its readers to share in the need to create asocietal solution to the cycle of inherited deprivationto which those in HMP Barlinnie will return.

The directness of the HMP Barlinnie prisoners’accounts of their experiences struck visitors to theMirrors exhibition, as evidenced in the followingquote from one visitor:

…the story of King Dexter and the Rat King(from the HMP Barlinnie graphic novel), apowerful and shocking parable of anger andalienation — a real story of the experienceof many prisoners and a refreshing changefrom our wished for tales of remorse andrehabilitation. Confronting violence, thetruth of it, is so vital.7

This brutal retelling of grim realities, in theparticipants’ own patois, was the key to developingtheir self-confidence, as measured by the academic

7. National Galleries of Scotland, (2011). Mirrors: Prison Portraits, Comments from exhibition visitors. p. 31.

(Figure 3) Headless, HMP YOIPolmont, 2010, copyright NGS, Fraser

Gray and Motherwell College 2010.

(Figure 1) Doppelganger, HMPShotts, 2010 copyright NationalGalleries of Scotland andMotherwell College 2010.

(Figure 2) Angel, HMP Greenock,2010, copyright NGS Craig MacLeanand Motherwell College 2010.

(Figure 4) King Dexter HMP Barlinnie, 2010,copyright NGS, Kevin Reid and Motherwell

College 2010.


evaluation. The HMP Barlinnie comic-artists scored thehighest across all nine Inspiring Change art projectsdue to positive changes in all the prisoners takingpart. Artist Kevin Reid, who led this project, allowedthe inmates to have control over the publication, withhim acting as editor, and this led to them developinga strong self-awareness as to the public’s potentialperceptions of their stories and images. This handingover of responsibility proved important to altering thisgroup of offenders’ perceptions of themselves,proving that the artistic process can function as asuitable training ground for positive decision-makingin relation to cause and effect.

If the cycle of deprivationand violence is to be brokenthen offenders need to besupported in their role asmembers of their families,establishing stable homes andlaw-abiding lives. At HMP OpenEstate those nearing the end oftheir sentences were asked toproduce photographs of ‘Home’whilst on leave. These imagesreflect the everydaycircumstances of normal life,poignantly displaying the men’sprecious feeling for others andtheir own hopes for fulfilment.Criminology’s theory of‘desistance’ — whereby theoffender eventually is tied morestrongly to children, family andstability, and offending begins tocease — begins to take on anachievable form in thesephotographs.

Pertinently, re-employmentrates for those leaving prison are small and continuedsupport from the authorities is slim. As the participantreleased back into society at the end of the Mirrorsdocumentary film points out, ‘You know… they talkabout community, but I don’t see much evidence ofcommunity out here.’8 This statement is a challengeto us all in the field of community-based arts and asfellow citizens.

The precious subjectivity that empowersindividuals to form a definable and productive identityis one of the defining qualities of our society. Thissense of reflection and agency has been achieved tosome extent by the men and women taking part inthe Mirrors project. Moreover, participants havestressed the change that has taken place whereby

they have openly discussed personal issues andsupported each other as members of a group sharingin the process of creativity and rehabilitation. This isvery unusual in the prison situation where privacy isguarded closely.

Altering Public Perceptions

From the beginning of the project the participantswere asked to consider the creation of their portraitsin relation to their display in a public exhibition in theScottish National Gallery, which was planned as the

culmination of the project. Thepossibility of this public visibilityof their work both intrigued andworried those taking part. Whilstattracted by the thought of theirwork being accepted on thislevel, they also feared it beingused to confirm their identitiesas ‘monsters’. They felt this‘monstering’ process hadoccurred during their courtappearances, particularly thosewhose trials had been covered inthe media. This process, whetherbased on any truth or not, hadleft the prisoners scarred,struggling with their ownperception of themselves as‘bad’. The phrase I rememberbeing used in HMP Shotts byone inmate was ‘sometimes I dothink I am bad, but...’. Thisnegative perception was also aninitial factor — but one thatcould be overturned — in thepublic response to the works of

art on display, as revealed by a visitor’s comment that‘there is often a perception that criminals are badthrough and through. Young offenders in particularare seen as having no ‘inner life’, no capacity for self-reflection and change. This exhibition challenges thatview. I was also stuck by how little the women lookedlike criminals, whatever criminals look like!’9

This comment reveals the preconceptions thatcan colour a member of the public’s viewing of aportrait of an offender. The long history of quasi-scientific physiognomy and the criminal justicesystem’s reliance on the photographic mug-shot, notforgetting portraiture’s own adoption of facial andbodily taxonomy (e.g. Edgar Degas’s late nineteenthcentury studies of prostitutes, ballet dancers and

8. National Galleries of Scotland, Mirrors (Art Class), (2010).9. National Galleries of Scotland, (2011). Mirrors: Prison Portraits, Comments from exhibition visitors. p. 31.

. . . participantshave stressed thechange that has

taken placewhereby they haveopenly discussed

personal issues andsupported each

other as membersof a group sharingin the process ofcreativity andrehabilitation.


laundresses), has developed strong visual expectationsin relation to portraits of prisoners. This is where thepower of self-depiction can help to restore faith in thepublic that people can change, an impulse evidencedby a visitor to the Mirrors exhibition who commented,‘My initial reaction is ‘Oh, something different’, butsoon I’m more deeply touched by the honesty — thepowerful yearning for freedom, the grief over timelost, opportunities wasted. The question of talent —which some clearly have — seems less important thanthe question of mercy and forgiveness not only fromthe society to its outcasts, or the victim to theoffender, but also the one stamped ‘wrong un’ or‘defective’, or ‘bad’ or ‘criminal’, or the ones wieldingthe stamps.’10

It could be said that the prisoners taking partwere prepared to put themselves on trial again, butthis time they were responsible for judgingthemselves. Their anxiety about being on publicdisplay once more via their self-portraits wasunderstandable, as they struggled to create an imageof themselves that they could share with others. Whatthey achieved can be measured by the reaction of fourHigh Court judges and three Sheriffs at a viewing ofthe exhibition and the project film.

These judges, including the legal Lord who wasresponsible for the training of judges in Scotland,spoke of their perceptions of those who passedbefore them being completely changed by theexhibition and particularly the film in which theparticipants from HMP Shotts explain the creation oftheir portraits and their motivations in making theseimages. They admitted that they had never seendefendants in the light of their own self-understanding and self-assessment. It was arevelation to them to experience the depth of insightand honest introspection on the part of thoseappearing in the film and immediately threw intoperspective the ‘narrow, negative powers’ that theydispensed in relation to those they sentenced. Theyfound it difficult to reconcile their powers of nugatorycorrection with the prisoners’ revealed need for‘working through’ and ‘self-examination’. Thesereactions left us, as organisers of the project, with asense of surprise that this lack of investigatory depthwas the default position within the constraints of thelegal system, and with respect for the honesty ofthese judges who were prepared to share theirreactions with us on this subject, as they genuinelyquestioned themselves and each other on how theycould act on what they had seen.

The judicial Lord responsible for training queriedhimself as to whether the film should be shown to allthose being trained for the bench. Sadly this idea was

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‘Engaging, thought-provoking’:Juliet Lyon

10. Ibid. p. 30.


not followed up, but the strength of the reaction ofthese judiciary officers to the revelation of thethoughtfulness of the prisoners in the film seemed tous to prove the genuineness of the participants’disclosure of themselves. The judges’ new insight intothese offenders as distinct personalities, seemed toparallel the portrait-makers’ own sense of an ongoingredemptive journey.

Another example of the project’s visibility in thepublic domain, was a visit to the Mirrors exhibition bythe Head of the Scottish Prison Service, and theScottish Government’s Minister for Justice, KennyMacAskill, who had welcomed the project from itsinception. Their positivity towards the exhibition,confirmed by the findings of the overall InspiringChange evaluation, reflected the government’sintention to develop creative rehabilitation options inScottish prisons. This aim was put into practice in2011 via Creative Scotland’s Arts and Criminal JusticeFunding Stream for arts projects directed at offenders,or those at risk of offending.

Creating portraits, and proudly exhibiting them,has proved to be an extremely powerful mechanism

for those seeking to begin to change their lives. Theworks of art in this exhibition demanded attentionand engagement on that basis alone. Further to thisachievement though, is the effect the Mirrorsexhibition and film has had on the public. Visitors tothe exhibition have been overwhelmingly positivetowards both the aims of the project and the qualityof the work on offer. One expressed this viewsuccinctly, ‘I think many people see offenders aspeople who do not know how to contribute to societyother than through crime. This exhibition gives achance to reconsider and reflect on how importantself-expression is to all.’11 Our evaluation also atteststo the willingness of members of the public toencounter the lives and thoughts of those who haveended up in prison, and to join with them in the taskof projecting the possibility of a collective solution tothe many lives that are wasted in our society.

In the final moments of the film a participantholds up his finally completed portrait and proudlystates, ‘There is a face there now. At the start I neverthought I would ever be able to put a face on it.’

11. Ibid. p. 30.

With acknowledgements and thanks to my colleague NGS Outreach Officer, Richie Cummingand project artists, Lou McLoughlan, Fraser Gray, Kevin Reid, Fin Macrae, Craig MacLean.

Images from the Mirrors: Prison Portraits project can be seen in the PDF of the exhibitioncatalogue at http://www.nationalgalleries.org/education/projects/mirrors-prison-portraits.The Mirrors (Art Class) documentary film of the project is available to view on the same

page. The HMP Barlinnie graphic novel, Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover, is also available asa PDF at http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media/_file/education/barlinnie_graphic_novel.pdf.


Introduction

Peer mentoring by people with convictions is verymuch ‘in vogue’. There is a tangible appeal to theconcept of reformed offenders taking a proactiverole in the rehabilitation of others, which fits wellwith current criminological theories of desistanceand indeed with political plans for a‘rehabilitation revolution’. Whilst there isoptimism for this approach, however, and indeedsome strong practice examples, there are equallysome tangible barriers to peer mentoring in thecriminal justice system, which reflect a broadertension between punitive and rehabilitativeideals. Mentors and mentees often refer todifficulties in making the transition from prisonerto member of the public, because they feelviewed in terms of their risk defined past, ratherthan their self-defined present. They also describebarriers to volunteering as peer mentors, andsettings where they are allowed to work, but withheavier restrictions than other civic volunteers.Finally however they speak in hopeful termsabout the uniqueness of the prisoner experience.Specifically how it may present a privileged formof knowledge, with the potential to encourageautonomy and change in others. Drawing upondata from my PhD project, which is anethnographic study of ‘peer mentoring’ by peoplewith convictions this article will explore thesethree points of dialogue. Data has been collectedthrough interviews with mentors and mentees,direct observations of practice and documentaryanalysis.

From Prisoner to Member of the Public

The difficulties experienced in making thetransition from ‘prisoner’ to ‘member of the public’ arewell documented, not least because ‘having a criminalrecord represents a substantial barrier to many types oflegal employment’.1 Indeed many of the respondents tothis study perceived that a criminal conviction rendersyou unemployable:

I’m not hearing anything, all applications askif you have convictions, I put: ‘will discuss ininterview’, but I think they see that and justthrow it away. (Jen, Mentee, 2012)

It is always hanging over you, there’s nothingI can do about it… [The form asks]: ‘Have yougot a criminal record?’… ‘Yes, to be discussedat interview’ you don’t get any furtherbecause they think ‘oh well, she’s a criminalisn’t she’. (Gina, Mentee, 2012)

My sentence was eight years ago now and stillno one will employ me. (Toni, Mentor, 2012)

Whilst advocates of punishment and deterrencemay argue that such informal sanctions are deservedconsequences of criminal choices, they nonethelessrepresent a clear barrier to civic reengagement.Furthermore, the difficulties experienced are notrestricted to paid employment:

On the [college] course I told this woman[about my conviction] and she just looked atme like she’d just stepped in me and it was ahorrible feeling. (Eve, Mentee, 2012)

I told the head person [of the charity] I’ve gota conviction, they were fine, but I’m sick of tiptoeing round people so I told [my colleagues]and that’s when the shit hit the fan, theyasked me to stand down. (Cat, Mentor, 2012)

I work for a hospice as well and I didn’t wantto tell them [that I’m a peer mentor] I thinkthey have this impression that all the reallybad criminals get together and… it’s just notlike that. (Janet, Mentor, 2013)

These three women were all engaged heavily incharitable voluntary work, yet here too, all hadexperienced forms of exclusion or fear of exclusion.There was also evidence of barriers when volunteerswere seeking formal training for their work:

1. Visher, C.A., Winterfield, L. and Coggeshall, M.B. (2005) Ex-offender employment programs and recidivism: A meta-analysis. Journal ofExperimental Criminology, 1(3), pp. 295-316: p.296.

Civic re-engagements amongstformer prisoners

Gill Buck is a PhD student at the School of Sociology and Criminology at Keele University.


Four of our women were selected and signedup for the local college’s Health and SocialCare course, but after being reassured theywouldn’t have to do it [the standard criminalhistory check] as they were all off site, theybacktracked and all applications with acriminal record are now on hold (MentoringCoordinator, 2013)

Despite the barriers experienced and perceivedhere however, there remains a strong idealist policydiscourse that prisoners can be reintegrated into thepublic fold once they have repaid their debt to society.There is potentially a fracture occurring thereforebetween our stated rehabilitation ideals and personalrealities. Nowhere is this more apparent than if wejuxtapose the Justice Minister’s description of peermentoring with that of areformed offender coordinatingone such project:

When someone leavesprison, I want them alreadyto have a mentor in place tohelp them get their livesback together… Often it willbe the former offender gonestraight who is best placedto steer the young prisonerback onto the straight andnarrow — the former gangmember best placed toprevent younger membersfrom rushing straight back to re-join the gangon the streets. There are some really goodexamples out there of organisations makinggood use of the old lags in stopping the newones. (Chris Grayling, Justice Minister)2

People generally think if you are in prison youare an offender, if you are in the communityon license you are an ex-offender, I think youactually become an ex-offender once youhave demonstrated that you have movedaway from offending and if you are going todo good work in custody and then come outand do good work in the community you haveto be given opportunities. To then denyopportunities like this to people who have gotfour years of a license to serve is to say youare lost for the next four years in thecommunity, no matter how much preparationyou have done, when you come through the

gate you are at the wall. (MentoringCoordinator, 2013)

For Grayling then, interveners are viewed to havepower and agency, it’s in their hands to ‘steer, preventand stop’ the criminal actions of their peers. In practicehowever, labels are imposed upon people, which resultin powerful restrictions. Peer mentors are defined inrelation to their past harms and denied (evenrestorative) opportunities accordingly. The resultinglanguage is of ‘denial’, ‘loss’ and being ‘at the wall’,with power and agency not so apparent.

The following account further illustrates limitationsupon full civic engagement, albeit for different reasons.‘Olivia’, like many women with criminal convictions, hasexperienced controlling violence and exploitation withinan intimate relationship. As a result she has debilitating

emotional health needs and isdependent on sickness benefit,she also volunteers as a peermentor on a near full time basis.She simultaneously thereforeembodies the civic volunteeressential to ‘big society’ ideals,AND the economic dependantcaricatured as the antithesis tothese; a drain on economicideals. Perhaps unsurprisingly it isher identity as a ‘drain’ that shefeels most keenly:

I volunteer Monday toFriday, I do it for the love of

it, but the Job Centres don’t see it like thatand the government don’t see it like that,they see me as going to work in a shop, eventhough my past [of violent public attacks byher ex-partner]… they say well ‘we’ll put youin a shop’ now as soon as one person knowswhere I work everyone will know… the JobCentre are trying to make me, but my doctorgives me a sick note every four weeks becausehe will not put me in that situation, but thelikes of government are like ‘you can do it, ifyou can do voluntary work, you can do this’,but I can pick and choose, on my bad days Idon’t come in… I’ll have to have calm tabletsto stop me from falling over… because I panicand I think I’m going to see him, and when Isee him he’ll see that I’m with [my partner]and smiling, and he’ll just walk up and knockme out, he’s done it plenty of times in themiddle of town and I think I can’t do that, so

2. Grayling, C (2012) ‘Rehabilitation Revolution’ speech, 20th November 2012, available in full at:http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/speeches/chris-grayling/speech-to-the-centre-of-social-justice

Peer mentors aredefined in relationto their past harmsand denied (even

restorative)opportunitiesaccordingly.


I won’t put myself in that position, but thegovernment don’t see it like that, it’s just like:‘get over it, it’s been nearly 3 years now, youshould be well over it.’ (Olivia, Mentor, 2012)

Whilst policy ideals for ex-prisoner rehabilitationwill require an ‘army of volunteers to do it properly’3

there is perhaps an underestimation of the complexneeds some of these volunteers will have, and some ofthe significant challenges they face. If there wererecognition of and provision for these needs however,the rewards are likely to be immeasurable. Olivia isundertaking an NVQ level 3 inInformation, Advice andGuidance having successfullycompleted level 2 with herproject’s help. She has alsoaccomplished a sign languagequalification and puts these skillsto use as a peer mentor, a roleshe is described as extremelyskilled at.

The voluntary contributionsof many interviewees then,despite meeting civic — orindeed ‘big society’ — ideals, didnot always overcome the stigmaof being labelled an ‘offender’.Moreover they often did notappear to meet more dominanteconomic ideals, such as thedemand to be in salaried forms ofemployment.

Barriers to volunteering

The clash betweenrehabilitative ideals and personalrealities in the spaces of peer mentoring can also betraced in transition from prison work. Professionals,ministers and researchers, for example, have all arguedthat reintegration efforts ideally require input pre andpost release from prison:

[W]e recognise ‘reintegration’ as a processthat starts at the point of confinement,preparing the prisoner for success afterrelease, and continuing for some timeafterwards.4

There are roles for offenders acting asmentors… They can be particularly effectiveduring transition from prison to outsideworld.5

The One to One model ideally involves aperiod of regular contact between youngperson and Mentor prior to their release fromcustody to allow time to get to know oneanother and prepare for return to thecommunity.6

Yet this ‘through the gate’work is proving to be a difficultbasic to master, if not through awant of trying, as illustrated bythis exchange between avolunteer and her manager:

Mentor: I want to go intothe prisons, do an actionplan, say I’ll be here if youneed anything, get back onyour feet and get you awayfrom the people who aregoing to draw you back in.

Manager: I wish we could,but even the staff havestruggled to get into theprison. We did their securitytraining but couldn’t pinthem down to a planningmeeting, and that was theexternal partner’s linkperson. (Project B, 2013)

Security has also proved tobe a barrier for ‘Lol’, a paid mentoring coordinatorworking for a national charity:

My offences are not 2 weeks old, my offencesare many, many, many years old andprincipally as a young offender by the wayand related to coming through the caresystem… The prison was interested insupporting us… but could not findpractitioners to support the ‘through the gate’mechanism… we can’t keep meeting through

3. Harry Fletcher of the National Association of Probation Officers, quoted in BBC news article ‘Prison gates mentor plan for releasedinmates’ 20 November 2012. Retrieved online, May 2013 at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20399401

4. Association of Chief Probation Officers cited in Deakin, J and Spencer, J (2011) ‘Who Cares? Fostering networks and relationships inprison and beyond’ in Sheehan, R., McIvor, G., Trotter, C. (Eds.) Working with women offenders in the community. Cullompton:Willan.

5. Ministry of Justice (2011) ‘Making Prisons Work: Skills for Rehabilitation Review of Offender Learning’. London: Department forBusiness, Innovation and Skills: p.23

6. Hunter, G and Kirby, A (2011) ‘Evaluation summary: Working one to one with young offenders’ London: Birkbeck College: p.5.

Whilst policy idealsfor ex-prisoner

rehabilitation willrequire an ‘army ofvolunteers to do itproperly’3 there is

perhaps anunderestimation ofthe complex needs

some of thesevolunteers will have,and some of the

significantchallenges they face.


the legal visits; we need to have some space inthe offender management unit as our own...because I’m an ex offender, when they do‘enhanced’ clearance for me it says no, sowe’ve gone back to Ministry of Justice… theyhave come up with this ‘standard plus’ whichis not quite ‘basic’ clearance, its nowhere near‘enhanced’, it’s somewhere between the twobut what that does is allows each prison to doits own local risk assessment (Lol, MentoringCoordinator, 2013)

Whilst the Ministry of Justice and individual prisonsare taking steps to address thebarrier of restricted access onsecurity terms then, for themoment people volunteering aspeer mentors in these settingsexperience a restricted orscrutinized form of citizenship.For example, even when mentorsare granted access to prisons,there is often a staff member orvolunteer without a criminalhistory additionally required:

We have access [in prison X]but a prison volunteer [whois not a peer] is always in theroom, that has a massiveimpact, last week when Iwent over she turned uplate, I had 45 minutes withthe guy on my own and wedid more in that 45 minutesthan we did in any of themeetings prior to thatbecause he just opened up (Lol, Coordinator,2013)

In working as volunteers therefore ‘ex-offenders’may struggle to overcome the ‘master status’7 of havingbeen an offender, despite their current status asvolunteers or even criminal justice staff members. Inother words they feel that they continue to be viewedin terms of a risk defined past, rather than a self-defined and publicly performed present:

I’ve had it, going to [prison] as a paid memberof probation staff… I’ve gone there to talk tothe client… getting ready to be released… soin that I’ve talked about my past and what I’mdoing now, and how that kind of qualifies meto offer that support, just so he knows he can

have confidence in me as well and build thatrelationship… by the time I had got back here[to probation] there had been a phone callfrom the head of [prison] security: ‘next timeyou send offender up here to do visits we’dlike to notified beforehand’ and we wassaying: ‘he’s not an offender, he’s a paidmember of [trust name] staff’ and there wasjust this hoo ha about it. (Adam, MentoringCoordinator, 2013)

Despite these limitations, there is some hope thatreformed offenders may be granted access to complete

the work: ‘[Prison Z] have comeback and they’ve vetted, I wentout and met with the governorlast week and they’re perfectlyhappy for us to go in three timesa month’ (Lol, 2013) However itis clear that once in action thework can make professional andpersonal demands over andabove those placed upon non-labelled or ‘public’ volunteers, asSteve, a peer mentor with aprolific offending history, andmore recently a probationemployee explains:

I’ve got the prison officerslooking at me, theyrecognize me, I don’t sayanything, I just feeluncomfortable, at first therewas a lot of loop holes theyhad to jump through to getme in there, but now I go on

my own but I love that side of it, sometimesit’s strange, like [Prison A] walking down themain corridor… you’re walking past all theprisoners and some are my old associates arelike: ‘fucking hell, how you doing? Used to bea nightmare him, he was a proper grafter’ andI’m like thinking ‘ohhhhhh’, I get reallyembarrassed by it, because obviously I amashamed of my past (Steve, Mentor, 2012)

Similarly, Phil is a peer mentor and former prisoner:

It can get you down a little bit if I’m honest,because you never get to forget that part ofyour life which you’d probably like to forget,you know, it’s the part that as a father now ofa young child, I want to kind of bury, I’m un-

7. Becker, H.S. (1966; 1963. Outsiders; studies in the sociology of deviance. New York: Free Press.

In working asvolunteers therefore‘ex-offenders’ may

struggle toovercome the

‘master status’7 ofhaving been anoffender, despitetheir current statusas volunteers or

even criminal justicestaff members.


burying every day in practice, with goodintentions, but nevertheless its resurfacing allthe time (Phil, Mentor, 2012)

For Steve and Phil then there is an ongoingpersonal demand even after navigating securityconcerns. Working in the prisons previously served in,serves as a reminder of a shameful past. It also brings tolife an identity remembered by others. Whilst Philacknowledges that this in itself can be motivational: ‘it’san opportunity for me to revisit them dark places, justto remind myself that I never want to go back there’(2012), there is nonetheless an intense, livedemotionality to this work, which is not present forvolunteers without such history.

The user perspective as a privileged knowledge

In terms of civic re-engagement however, the peermentoring picture is not alllimitation, exclusion and shame.Indeed this appears to be acontext wherein people withconvictions can not only becomecivic contributors but ‘civicexperts’ with a unique andprivileged knowledge:

65 per cent of offendersunder the age of 25 saidthat having the support of amentor would help them tostop re-offending; 71 per cent said theywould like a mentor who is a formeroffender.8

User Voice is a charity led and delivered by ex-offenders. This gives us the unique ability togain the trust of, access to and insight frompeople within the criminal justice system.9

Ex-offenders are ‘uniquely placed’ to offersupport to offenders, alongside otherprofessional services and can connect withthem in a way that many other agenciescannot.10

In the space of peer mentoring, ex-offenders areperceived as both experts with unique experientialknowledge and un-patronising equals:

It does seem to work better when you’veactually been there, that’s how I personallyfeel anyway. Somebody who’s just read itfrom a book isn’t the same as actually beenthere and done it. (Ben, Mentee, 2013)

For a straight mentor crime wouldn’t comeinto their thought, but another mentor thinks‘I’ll have to speak to him and try and level himout’, someone who’s not been down thatroad, not be patronizing, but they’ve not gota clue about it really (Will, Mentee, 2012)

With someone else like the man in the suityou’d just think ‘you haven’tgot a clue’, and it wouldmake me feel angry andresentful towards them butif I get it off a peer I thinkwell ‘they know whatthey’re on about’ and I trusttheir comments and takethem on board (Lin, Mentorand Previously a Mentee,2013)

These reflections providesome support for the argumentsthat peers ‘are more likely to have

specific knowledge… and an understanding of realisticstrategies to reduce risk’11 and that ‘ex-offenders…have the credibility that statutory agencies don’t oftenhave’.12 Mentors who have made positive changesthemselves also appear to provide an inimitable formof inspiration:

I wanted to feel the way they did, theyweren’t beaming out happiness, but theyweren’t sad, they was that content in their lifethey were offering to other people, to helpthem and I wanted to be able to do that(Georgie, Mentee, 2012)

8. Princes Trust (2008) Making the Case: One-to-one support for young offenders, 23 June 2008: Princes Trust, Rainer, St Giles Trust,CLINKS.

9. User Voice (2013) ‘Mission statement’ available online at: http://www.uservoice.org/about-us/mission 10. Crispin Blunt: Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Prisons and Youth Justice, answering questions in parliament, July 2012. Reported in

Puffet, N. ‘Ex-offenders enlisted to tackle youth reoffending’ in Children and Young People Now Magazine. 4 July 2012. Articleretrieved online, January 2013 at: http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1073814/ex-offenders-enlisted-tackle-youth-reoffending

11. Devilly, G.J., Sorbello, L., Lynne Eccleston, L. & Ward, T. (2005) ‘Prison-based peer-education schemes’. Aggression and ViolentBehavior, 10, 219-240: p.223.

12. Nellis, M and McNeill, F. (2008) Foreward to: Weaver, A. So You Think You Know Me? Hampshire: Waterside Press: p. xi

Mentors who havemade positive

changes themselvesalso appear toprovide an

inimitable form ofinspiration.


To meet people who were just as twisted as Iwas… see somebody for yourself go throughthem changes and be a positive member ofthe community, you know it’s possible… 20years destroying everything around them thenthey’ve flipped it over and those 20 yearsturned into gold… it saved my life (Lin,Mentor and previously a Mentee, 2013)

I don’t think of myself as being a massiveinspiration but it is sort of proof that it can bedone. (Katy, Mentor, 2012)

Central to these narratives is the image of the ex-offender, which at once comes to symbolise newpossibilities and knowledge of a shared struggle.Indeed there is theoretical support for the power ofsuch imagery:

It is only through recovery forums and peer-led services that people in recovery canbecome visible. Once these people becomevisible recovery champions, they can helppeople to believe that recovery is not onlypossible but desirable. I refer to both peoplewho provide and people who receivetreatment and support services.13

Visibility is therefore seen to be vital in terms ofhope, not just for people contemplating change, butalso for those supporting them. In the field of mentalhealth for example, Rufus May, a clinical psychologistand former patient argued: ‘Mental health workers…don’t see the ones like me who got away. Thereforethey have very little concept of recovery from mentalhealth problems’.14 If we transfer his reasoning to thissetting, peer mentors come to inform and constitutethe possibility of desistance for service users andpractitioners alike. This is particularly important as:

Some of the most recent work on the processof desistance has focused on the role of hopein the reintegration of offenders (Burnett andMaruna 2004; Farrall and Calverly 2005).These studies contend that ‘hope’ for thefuture seems to play a significant role in

predicting reintegrative and rehabilitativesuccess. It provides ex-offenders ‘with thevision that an alternative ‘normal’ life is bothdesirable and, ultimately… possible’ (Farralland Calverly, 2005: 192-93)15

Concluding thoughts

The barriers and possibilities described in this studyreflect a fundamental contradiction in expectationsupon people as they move from ‘prisoner’ to ‘memberof the public’. Plans to concurrently scrutinise, monitorand restrict people with convictions, whilst engagingthem as the specialist citizens in the ‘rehabilitationrevolution’ reflects a justice system which attempts toserve punitive and rehabilitative ideals simultaneously. Ifdesistance requires people to be responded to ‘ascitizens with rights and needs, rather than… pastlawbreakers and future risks’16 we perhaps need toreconsider how far punitive responses reach post-conviction. If we are committed to rehabilitation andreintegration, actuarial safeguarding arguably needs tobe balanced with efforts to allow people fuller re-entryto public life. This is not a call for a neglectful culture ofrisk, but for a measured reflection of the categories andrestrictions we impose upon people and a considerationof what purpose they serve. In my own field ofcriminology this may require a reflection upon thedegree to which we are complicit in the civic exclusionof ‘offenders’. We label people, we take their stories,we ‘make sense’ (and so label again), we publish storiesand gain plaudits in our own name. We are arguably anindustry which has cultivated (and sustains) notions of‘offender’ and ‘ex-offender’. By listening to the livedexperiences of civic life after prison, and by recognisingforms of knowledge that are relegated below theacademic or the professional, we may be encouragedto humanise rather than objectify people involved withcriminal justice services. In doing so we may openspaces for reformed citizens rather than scrutinizedcitizens and so promote sustainable desistance fromcrime.

Note: The names of respondents used and cited arepseudonyms to maintain their anonymity.

13. Kidd, M. (2011) ‘A Firsthand Account of Service User Groups in the United Kingdom: An Evaluation of Their Purpose, Effectiveness,and Place within the Recovery Movement’. Journal of Groups in Addiction & Recovery, 6:1-2, 164-175: p.174.

14. Basset, T. & Repper, J. (2005). Travelling Hopefully. Mental Health Today (November), 16-18:pp. 16-17.15. Farrall, S., Sparks, R & Maruna, S. (2011) Escape routes: contemporary perspectives on life after punishment. Abingdon, Oxon:

Routledge: p. 168.16. Carlen, P (2012) ‘Against rehabilitation: for reparative justice’ A transcript of the 2012 Eve Saville lecture given by Professor Pat Carlen

to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies on 6 November 2012: p.5 Available online at:http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/against-rehabilitation-reparative-justice


Film reviewEveryday (2012)Dir. Michael Winterbottom

Everyday had a limited theatricalrun in late 2012 and was broadcaston Channel 4 in early 2013, but it hastaken me almost a year to get aroundto watching it. I often have a feelingof dread when faced with a prisonfilm, perhaps the consequence ofwatching too many over the yearswith too few worth the effort.However, this film really is worth theeffort, in fact, since I reluctantlypressed ‘play’, it has entranced me,running over and over in my headlong after the credits had rolled.

The film itself focuses on afamily, with four children, over a fiveyear period in which the father(played by John Simm), serves aprison sentence for an unspecifiedcrime. A series of visits take place, toprisons and then home leave, beforethe sentence ends. The family feel thestrain of staying together financiallyand emotionally. The style of the filmis realist with the emotions mutedand the narrative constrained. Therealism is heightened by the use ofreal locations, non-professional actorsin critical roles, including the fourchildren, and fact that the film wasmade over a five year period, withshooting taking place in short blocksover that time, so that the charactersvisibly grow and age.

The director MichaelWinterbottom has always been abusy and diverse film-maker. In asimilar vein, he has been responsiblefor socially-conscious, realist filmssuch as Welcome to Sarajevo (1997),In this world (2002) and The road toGuantanamo (2006). He has brought

new life to the work of Thomas Hardyin his adaptations of Jude theObscure (Jude, 1996), The Mayor ofCasterbridge (The Claim, 2000), andTess of the D’Urbervilles (Trishna,2011). He has also had success with aseries of comic dramas featuringSteve Coogan including 24 hourparty people (2002), A cock and bullstory (2005), The Trip (2010), and Thelook of love (2013). Winterbottom isone of Britain’s most prolific, variedand imaginative film-makers.

Much of the coverage andreaction to Everyday focussed on theissue of time. Of course the unusualproduction schedule drew attentionand in many ways shapedsubsequent discussion of the film.1

This concern with time wasintentional, as reflected in theproduction technique. AsWinterbottom himself has said:

… we wanted to do a film abouttime passing across five years, tosee how the children wouldchange with the absence of thefather and whether, for instance,he could maintain a relationshipwith them.2

Rather than deploying cinematicconventions to show the passing oftime or relying upon special effects ormake up, Winterbottom wasattempting to reveal ‘the small, subtlechanges as people grow up and growold whilst being apart’.3

As well as time, the film is alsodeeply concerned with issues ofspace. This is shown most starklythrough the long journeys fromhome to the prisons, moving fromfoot, to bus, to train to taxi. Thedistance between prison and the

home is an important aspect ofpainfulness of prisons for the familiesof those incarcerated.4 The filmdwells on these liminal spaces with allof the physical, emotional andfinancial exhaustion they contain.

The visits themselves are also animportant space. The film showsthem with all of their diversity fromvisits rooms, closed visits booths, today release and home leave. Each hasits own emotional texture of hopeand despair. A recent BBC comedy setin a prison visits hall was criticised forusing the situation to distance theviewer and anaesthetise them to thereality of prison life.5 Rather thanattempting to obscure thepainfulness of prison, the depiction ofvisits in Everyday, illuminates how thetentacles of imprisonment reach out,entangling those outside as well asthose inside.

The power of Winterbottom’sfilm does not, however, rest onlyupon its technical innovations or itsintellectual ideas; it is an emotionallymoving work. The realist approachmeant that the narrative andrelationships developed organicallyover the years of production. Thefamily experience strains in theirrelationships with each other andthose around them, but also drawnupon their own resources and thesupport of others. There is no grandmelodrama or wrought emotionalclimax, instead they face the future,scarred by their experiences but stilltogether. The muted, constrainedapproach makes it all the moreaffecting; it is an almost unbearablyhonest reflection of family life.

Michael Winterbottom’sEveryday is a cinematic gem, albeitone in a minor key. It is the product of

Reviews

1. For example see The Guardian 15 October 2012 http://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/oct/15/child-stars-michael-winterbottom-everyday (accessed 03 February 2014).

2. http://guru.bafta.org/michael-winterbottom-interview (accessed 03 February 2014).3. Ibid.4 . Mills, A. and Codd, H. (2007) Prisoners’ families in Jewkes, Y. (ed) Handbook on Prisons Cullompton: Willan. p. 672-695. 5. Turner, J. (2013) The politics of carceral spectacle: Televising prison life in Moran, D., Gill, N. and Conlon, D. (ed) Carceral spaces:

Mobility and agency in imprisonment and migrant detention Farnham: Ashgate. p.219-237.


a film-maker willing to take risks.However, this is not only an artisticachievement; it also illuminateshidden corners of everyday life. Fromthat perspective, it is a work ofprofound humanity.


Book ReviewCritique and dissent: Ananthology to mark 40 years ofthe European Group for theStudy of Deviance and SocialControlEdited by Joanna Gilmore, J.M.Moore and David ScottPublisher: Quill Books (2013)ISBN: 978-1-926958-28-6(paperback)Price: £20.00 (paperback)

Rethinking social exclusion: Theend of the social?By Simon Winslow and Steve HallPublisher: Sage (2013)ISBN: 978-1-84920-107-0(hardback) 978-1-84920-108-7(paperback)Price: £75.00 (hardback) £24.99(paperback)

Criminal justice andneoliberalismBy Emma BellPublisher: Palgrave Macmillan (2011)ISBN: 978-0-230-25197-7(hardback)Price: £50.00 (hardback)

Why prison?Edited by David ScottPublisher: Cambridge UniversityPress (2013)ISBN: 978-1-107-03074-9(hardback)Price: £75.00 (hardback)

Together these four books offeran introduction and overview of

critical criminology. This approach hasa number of dimensions but isarguably underpinned by a concernwith power and inequality, and howthis is not only reflected within butalso sustained and entrenched bysocial institutions such as criminaljustice. Many critical criminologistsattempt to describe the widerideology that shapes politics andsociety. They are also oftenconcerned with the effects,particularly the experiences of sociallyand economically marginalisedgroups, historically the poor, but alsoengaging with issues of gender, race,and other forms of identity and socialpositioning. It is a movement whichseeks to challenge dominant ideasand practices intellectually, but is alsolinked to social activism.

The ambitions of criticalcriminology are well captured in thetitle of the first book: Critique anddissent. The book itself drawstogether contributions from 40 yearsof the European Group for the Studyof Deviance and Social Control. Thegroup was initially established in theearly 1970s, a period of socialupheaval and conflict, and attemptedto bring together an internationalcollection of scholars concerned withissues relating to critical criminology.As revealed in this book, the firstmanifesto made explicit reference toan underlying Marxist philosophy. Aswell as providing rich intellectualideas, the group has also embracedconflict, including hostingconferences in Northern Irelandduring 1981 hunger strikes, Walesduring Miners strike of 1984 andmore recently Greece and Cyprus.This book neatly captures the tenor ofthe groups work to expose the limitsof knowledge and the ways that it isexploited by the powerful, and thepromotion of research that revealsthe experiences of the powerless andoffers them solidarity and support.Whilst this book is perhaps best seenas a celebration of the work of theGroup, it will offer something of

interest to both scholars and thecasual reader who will be able totrace the emergence anddevelopment of this school ofthought.

It could, however, be arguedthat the moment for criticalcriminology is not historical, but isnow upon us. The financial crisis andsubsequent recession have drawnattention to the failures of capitalism.In relation to prisons, there has beena loosening of the grip of popularpunitiveness and the appeal of massimprisonment.1 This is partly becauseit is no longer considered affordable,but also the political payload hasbeen reduced as crime rates havefallen. In addition, there is a growingbody of evidence, including thatoffered by critical criminologists,which has revealed the harmfulnessof prisons and questioned theireffectiveness. The three further booksreviewed here address thesecontemporary circumstances.

Two powerful critiques ofcontemporary UK political and socialculture are offered by Simon Winslowand Steve Hall in Rethinking socialexclusion: The end of the social?, andby Emma Bell in Criminal justice andneoliberalism. Both take as theirstarting point the dominant ideologyof neoliberalism. As Bell argues,neoliberalism is a complex systemthat has economic aspects but alsosocial, political, legal, cultural andintellectual dimensions. In essence itencompasses the withdrawal of thestate from the economic sphere,instead promoting the deregulationof markets and the contracting out ofstate services. In addition, this alsoembraces interventionism in dealingwith problematic groups orinstitutions including themarginalised and those that resist.For Winslow and Hall, the enduring,permanent poverty and punitivecontrol of those at the margins areintegral parts of the whole system.However, Bell disagrees, suggestingthat neoliberalism and punitiveness

1. Cullen, F., Jonson, C., and Stohr, M. (2014) The American prison: Imagining a different prison Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

are not inevitably interlinked, butindeed address contradictoryimpulses about the role of the state.She argues that offering safety fromcrime, or at least the appearance ofaction in this regard, is compensationfor reduced economic and socialsecurity for the majority.

For Bell, neoliberalism ismediated through local cultures andtherefore is different in differentcountries. Nevertheless, she doesaccept that the UK has been morewilling to embrace punitiveness andthat neoliberalism helps to createconditions that sustain this, including:reduced social solidarity and the riseof rampant individualism; thedeprofessionalisation of criminaljustice and creation of managerialelites, and; the triangulation ofpolitics, media and judiciary to createa powerful orthodoxy. Bell offers anin-depth and deft contribution,linking wider social changes withthose that took root in the criminaljustice system during the New Labourera.

Winslow and Hall’s account ismore polemic. Its commitment andconsistency is admirable and it ispersuasively argued, but it does alsoreveal many of the limitations ofcritical criminology at its moststrident. They describe notions of‘social exclusion’ as inadequate for anumber of reasons. First, theysuggest that those in circumstancesare not excluded, indeed theirposition is an integral aspect ofcapitalism and neoliberalism. Theyare the losers than enable others tobe winners. In addition, in perhapstheir most significant contribution,they describe how the subjectivity ofthose in poverty can only beunderstood by reference to thedominant consumer culture: manyare unable to consistently andextensively enter into this world andtherefore experience that as a sourceof painfulness, and seekopportunities, however, fleetingly toaccess this. More widely, they evenquestion whether there is a ‘social’from which it is possible to be

excluded. They describe the ‘non-places’ of manufactured dormitoryestates and towns, bland shoppingmalls, and empty social experiences inan atomised, individualistic world.They describe an ugly and unpleasantsociety, which makes one wonder,whether if Blur hadn’t got there first,then this book might have beencalled Modern life is rubbish. But issuch a description entirely justified?There is certainly much to be said forthe harms that capitalism perpetuateson those at the margins and thedisproportionate power andresources accumulated by a few,however, it is in the relentlessproblematising and criticism thatperspective can be lost. For example,at one stage Winslow and Hall brieflytake on the idea of social media,describing this as ‘low levelimmaterial labour that isappropriated by capitalism and usedto generate profit’ (p.115). Whilstsuch a perspective has some merit, itis too dogmatic, ignoring thepotential for meaningful socialconnections that can be forged andsustained across space and timethrough social media, let alone thepotential for developing networks ofshared interest, or even resistance.However, moderation is not the aim,instead they are pitching at morerevolutionary change, arguing:

. . . if we are serious aboutpreventing the manifold harmsof exclusion in their entirety, it isclear we need a fundamentalreorganisation of the globalpolitical economy from itsfinancial core. . . (p.170)

Critical criminology has itselfbeen sometimes criticised for failingto present a persuasive alternative.Winslow and Hall should beapplauded for articulating analternative, grounded in reducedlevels of economic inequality,optimistically asserting that:

Despite the failures of previousill-conceived attempts to do so,

it is always possible to besomething else, to transcend theideology of liberal capitalism andreplace institutionalisedselfishness with genuinecommunity, to replace enmitywith solidarity, and exclusivitywith inclusivity (p.175)

However, they also do not flinchfrom revealing the challenges ofpersuading people to embrace this:

What by and large we cannotcountenance is the painfulreality that we might have to getby with less, that whateverpower fills the void left by theexit of capitalism would decreean end to our profligatelifestyles. Despite the likelyprotestations of the ethicalconsumers of the middle class, aworld without foreign holidays,iPads and other accoutrementsof a socially included lifestyle fillsthe mainstream Westernpopulation with dread(p. 172-3)

In many ways this book isimpressive. It has a singularity ofvision and a seductive passion.However, for all that it also leaves anunsatisfactory sense of its own futility.It is so ambitious and revolutionarythat it feels unachievable. A bit likethe street corner, sandwich boardwearing prophet declaring that the‘end is nigh’: they might not get whatthey want but the world would be apoorer place without them.

Finally, David Scott’s editedcollection Why prison? will have themost relevance to prison practitionersand will also have the broadestappeal. It offers an impressive array ofleading scholars dissecting theemergence of global hyper-incarceration and strategies forchange. As was mentioned earlier,now is a time when the grip ofimprisonment has been loosened andthis book talks directly to this issueand indeed plays an active role in thestruggle.



The first part of the book tracesthe rise of mass imprisonment,spreading penality into new forms ofdetention such as migration, and thedominant neoliberal ideology thatunderpins this development. The roleof the public is also examined,including the role of spectatorship indefining how we think about andengage with prisons. Mostimportantly, this book develops acredible argument for the abolitionistcause, that is the view that theinstitution of imprisonment should beabolished and instead alternativeinstitutions and processes bedeveloped that can managetransgressions. Such an argument isnot located simply in a change of thecriminal justice system but alsoencompasses a wider change in socialstructures and ideology. In theirchapter, Vickie Cooper and Joe Simchallenge the notion of asking ‘Whyprison?’ and instead suggest weshould ask ‘why not utopianism,

abolitionism and socialism?’ (p.210).Whilst this reveals an explicit politicalagenda, it also raises a wider issueabout whether removing prison fromthe question opens the imaginationand offers more creativeopportunities for thinking aboutcrime and society. In other words theprison acts as a dead hand, stiflingideas. A particularly importantchapter by Keally McBride describesthe recent process of decarceration inCalifornia, driven by legal judgementsand the economic crisis, which saw a16.5 per cent reduction in the prisonpopulation in a year (2011-12). Thiscase study shows that radical changeis possible. The final two chapters ofthe book take forward theabolitionist cause. Julia C. Oparahprovides an account of how to makethe case and to campaign effectivelyfor radical change. In closing, DavidScott sketches a utopian, butnevertheless grounded and practical,vision of abolitionist alternatives. This

is a very welcome contribution whichdeserves close attention and wouldmerit expansion in the future. As withEmma Bell’s book, Scott offers anuanced and grounded analysisthroughout this excellent editedcollection. What he additionallycontributes is an engagement withthe activism of radical reform.

Critical criminology offers achallenge to conventions; it leads oneto question not only professionalpractice and criminal justice but alsothe wider social world in which it issituated. That can be anuncomfortable experience but alsoone that is enlightening andemotionally powerful. These fourbooks illustrate that this is a diversefield but one that is full ofimagination and remains relevant tothe way we live now and in thefuture.



PUBLICATIONS

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Purpose and editorial arrangements

The Prison Service Journal is a peer reviewed journal published by HM Prison Service of England and Wales.

Its purpose is to promote discussion on issues related to the work of the Prison Service, the wider criminal justice

system and associated fields. It aims to present reliable information and a range of views about these issues.

The editor is responsible for the style and content of each edition, and for managing production and the

Journal’s budget. The editor is supported by an editorial board — a body of volunteers all of whom have worked

for the Prison Service in various capacities. The editorial board considers all articles submitted and decides the out-

line and composition of each edition, although the editor retains an over-riding discretion in deciding which arti-

cles are published and their precise length and language.

From May 2011 each edition is available electronically from the website of the Centre for Crimeand Justice Studies. This is available at http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/psj.html

Circulation of editions and submission of articles

Six editions of the Journal, printed at HMP Leyhill, are published each year with a circulation of approximately

6,500 per edition. The editor welcomes articles which should be up to c.4,000 words and submitted by email to

[email protected] or as hard copy and on disk to Prison Service Journal, c/o Print Shop Manager,

HMP Leyhill, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, GL12 8HL. All other correspondence may also be sent to the

Editor at this address or to [email protected].

Footnotes are preferred to endnotes, which must be kept to a minimum. All articles are subject to peer

review and may be altered in accordance with house style. No payments are made for articles.

Subscriptions

The Journal is distributed to every Prison Service establishment in England and Wales. Individual members of

staff need not subscribe and can obtain free copies from their establishment. Subscriptions are invited from other

individuals and bodies outside the Prison Service at the following rates, which include postage:

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single copy £7.00



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single copy £10.00



Orders for subscriptions (and back copies which are charged at the single copy rate) should be sent with a

cheque made payable to ‘HM Prison Service’ to Prison Service Journal, c/o Print Shop Manager, HMP Leyhill,

Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, GL12 8BT.

Contents

4

10

17

Review of ‘The Prison and the Public’ ConferenceEdge Hill University, Wednesday 27 March 2013Holly White, Lindsey Ryan, Chris Wadsworth andPhil Williams

Holly White, Lindsey Ryan, ChrisWadsworth and Phil Williams(Edge Hill University).

Editorial Comment: The Prison and the PublicDr Alana Barton and Dr Alyson Brown

2Dr Alana Barton is a Senior Lecturerin Criminology and Criminal Justice atEdge Hill University and Dr AlysonBrown is a Reader in History at EdgeHill University.

Michael Crowley was Writer inResidence HM YOI Lancaster Farms(2007-2013) and is author of Behindthe Lines: creative writing withoffenders and those at risk (WatersidePress, 2012).

Free to Write: A Case Study in the Impact of CulturalHistory Research and Creative Writing PracticeDr Tamsin Spargo and Hannah Priest

Dr Tamsin Spargo and HannahPriest Liverpool John MooresUniversity.

Katy Swaine Williams led the PrisonReform Trust’s outreach programmefrom 2011 to December 2013,supported by the Monument Trustand aimed at bringing prison reformto a wider audience, inspiring andsupporting others to take action.Janet Crowe is deputy director at thePrison Reform Trust and has ongoingresponsibility for the charity’s workwith the public.

Chapter and Verse: The Role of Creating Writing inReducing Re-offendingMichael Crowley

22 Talking Justice: Building vocal public support forprison reformKaty Swaine Williams and Janet Crowe

Rachel Forster University of Leedsand Liz Knight Leeds Museum andDiscovery Centre.

28 Challenging Perceptions: Considering the Value ofPublic OpinionRachel Forster and Liz Knight

Paul AddicottHMP HighdownDr Rachel Bell

HM & YOI HollowayMaggie Bolger

Prison Service College, Newbold RevelDr Alyson BrownEdge Hill UniversityDr Ben Crewe

University of CambridgePaul CrosseyHMYOI FelthamDr Sacha Darke

University of Westminster Dr Michael Fiddler

University of Greenwich

Steve HallSERCO

Dr Karen HarrisonUniversity of Hull (Reviews Editor)Professor Yvonne JewkesUniversity of LeicesterDr Helen JohnstonUniversity of HullMartin Kettle

Church of EnglandDr Victoria Knight

De Montford UniversityMonica Lloyd

University of Birmingham

Alan LongwellNorthern Ireland Prison Service

William PayneBusiness Development Group

Dr David ScottLiverpool John Moores University

Christopher StaceyUnlock

Ray TaylorNOMS HQ

Mike WheatleyDirectorate of Commissioning

Kim WorkmanRethinking Crime and Punishment, NZRay Hazzard and Steve Williams

HMP Leyhill

Editorial BoardDr Jamie Bennett (Editor)

Governor HMP Grendon & Springhill

This edition includes:

Chapter and Verse: The Role of Creating Writing inReducing Re-offending

Michael Crowley

Talking Justice: Building vocal public support forprison reform

Katy Swaine Williams and Janet Crowe

Repression and Revolution: Representations of CriminalJustice and Prisons in Recent Documentaries

Dr Jamie Bennett

How the public sphere was privatized and whycivil society could reclaim it.

Mary S Corcoran

P R I S O N S E R V I C E

OURNALJP R I S O N S E R V I C EP R I S O N S E R V I C E

OOUURRNNALALJJ

Special Edition

The Prison and the Public

July 2014 No 214

Prison Service Journal - Centre for Crime and Justice Studies · 2014. 7. 7. · Prison Service...

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