No. 7 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system.

Author: Alison Frater, Co-Chair of Clean Break

 

How do we halt the vicious cycle of crime?

On the face of it a question about halting the vicious cycle of crime requires an answer about prevention. We need to identify what it is about our society, individuals, families and communities that creates crimes then we’d know what to do to stop it, wouldn’t we?

Examining the question more closely and especially through the lens of women’s incarceration, an area I know best (though the issues are not unique to women), I see that the author is asking a better question. It’s not the crime in this sentence that’s vicious it’s the cycle. The questioner already knows that the causes of crime are well evidenced, properly researched, findings are validated. What they want is the answer to why it goes round and round. Who on earth is responsible for this malign scrolling recurring endlessly to the detriment of perpetrator and victim – a false dichotomy for women by the way. And what, in this past, present and never-ending future, can we do to stop it.

Observing moribund, going nowhere social policy is a bit of an occupational hazard in my chosen career of pubic health. But, the repeated failure of successive governments to deliver the widely supported policy objective of reducing women’s incarceration has few precedents. The neglect of need, the un-reason, the wasted investment on interventions with evidence to the contrary sinks to a new low of moral and fiscal incoherence. Still being sentenced to imprisonment for minor crime, first offences, debt, problems arising from drug and alcohol issues, they lose their jobs, their housing, their children. Failed again and again women are forced to relive their trauma through endless public enquiries. Children, families and communities are left to roll around in a badly led, courage missing, policy churn.

Shifting your stare from the relentless pursuit of change through political influencing takes a lot for a hardened public health consultant. I’ve had to get over my disbelief  – my own vicious cycle – that surely this latest piece of research or this reshuffled administration or new Secretary of State will make the difference. For me, release, stepping out of the miserable vortex came from six years of joyous chairing of the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance.

Arts organisations don’t like to see themselves in the role of social reformers. They argue about the intrinsic value of the arts, the complexity of emotional enrichment. They don’t deny art’s transforming power but they worry that it will be diminished if pressed to the wheel of social reform. And well they might.

But for me the reveal is that the arts explain the cause of crime but also the consequences of criminalisation. They hold a mirror to society in a way that refracts its more bewildering behaviour. What you get is a way of seeing, a visible light.

Public sector organisations are now required to deliver social impact. Increasingly they’re turning to the organisations in the NCJ Arts Alliance for inspiration. What they find are cultural leaders who deliver change because they put people’s needs at the core of their work.

I co-chair Clean Break, a theatre company that provides access to creativity for women affected by the criminal justice system. From its origins 40 years ago, the founders established and worked with sister organisations who could offer help with housing, health, employment, education, social care. Clean Break delivers, mentoring, writing and theatre workshops, dramaturgy but also friendship and community. It stands with its members tackling discrimination, racism and poverty. It sees that meeting physical and mental health needs drives out the stifling impact of inequalities, frees lives, enables unique and wonderful, inspiring expression.

When Clean Break presents productions (and don’t miss the Summer Season 2021) increasingly to new audiences in full houses or on packed screens, it finds a society that hasn’t given up on women, but one that’s giving up on leaders who continue to condemn the vulnerable to vicious cycles.

 

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Good Vibrations has worked in prisons and young offender institutions since 2003. We see the destructive effects on people of living within our overstretched, under-resourced criminal justice system. We want to understand how people can be better supported before, during and after their contact with the criminal justice system.  We have commissioned a series of blogs from a range of experts, including those with lived experience and their families. Every Thursday for the next four months, we will bring a different voice with their own unique perspective and ideas. At the end of the series we will publish a report drawing together the themes and recommendations.

No. 6 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system.

Author: Chris Atkins, filmmaker, journalist and author

 

Most ex-jailbirds want to quickly forget their time behind bars, but I didn’t have that option. I’d got sentenced to five years for tax fraud in 2016, after getting involved in a dodgy scheme to fund my film. I kept a prison diary which was published a year ago, called A Bit of a Stretch, and has since become a bestseller. I’d assumed that interest in prisons would evaporate once the world went into lockdown, but it was quite the reverse. I was bombarded with tweets asking how to survive isolation, so I replied with tips about the importance of routine, breaking the day into manageable chunks, and timing your bowel movements for the greater good. I was bemused to see people directly comparing the lockdown to prison, with Ellen DeGeneres complaining in her LA mansion: “This is like being in jail, mostly because I’ve been in the same clothes for 10 days and everyone in here is gay.”[i]

But aside from upsetting Hollywood celebs, Covid-19 had a catastrophic impact on British prisons, which were already in a nightmare state. Family visits were cancelled and prisoners were immediately locked in their cells all day. The Ministry of Justice claimed that the system was under control, but official prison inspectors were kept out which prevented any outside scrutiny. Fortunately, I was already making a podcast series about prison life and in contact with several serving prisoners, so I had a unique window into this terrible phase of the prison crisis.

One inmate explained how quickly things had deteriorated. “One minute we were doing our usual education and going to work, and then suddenly we were trapped in our cells for over 23 and a half hours a day. We got ten minutes to have a shower, ten minutes to do any admin, then we were banged back up. There was a bit of camaraderie at first, feeling we were all in this together. We made a lot of noise for the clap for the NHS, everyone was banging their doors and hooting.”

Even though prisoners were mostly stuck in their cells, they were still closely mingling when accessing food and showers. One inmate said “They’d let out a whole landing at once to queue for the servery, and we weren’t standing 2 meters apart.” A resident in another prison revealed “Social distancing didn’t exist whatsoever. 200 guys were sharing just six shower heads, with no partitions, all crammed into a tiny swamp.”

Most prisons are horrendously overcrowded, with two and even three inmates sharing cells designed for one, so coronavirus ripped right through the system. A prisoner told me how most of his wing quickly became infected. “We all lost our sense of taste and smell really early on. We couldn’t taste the prison food, which was quite a bonus to be fair!” A resident at one prison said that half their residents (approx. 800 men) had covid symptoms in the first month. But despite these spiralling figures, the Ministry of Justice claimed there were only 88 infected prisoners in April 2020[ii], as hardly any inmates were being tested. In the same month Public Health England reported that the number of actual cases was at least 2,000 – twenty times more than the government’s estimate[iii].

Symptomatic inmates were soon subjected to barbaric isolation measures, in a desperate attempt to curtail the virus. “People would be locked up for two and a half weeks solid. They didn’t even get the twenty minutes out their cells, so no showers or exercise. The officers would bring food to their door, tell them to go to the back of the cell, and push the food in. Healthcare became non-existent. If you had symptoms, they locked you up, put a sticker on the door and said ‘Good luck!’.” This inhumane shielding had surreal unintended consequences. “If you said you had the virus, the security officers would take you to the quarantine unit, under restraint if necessary. So, after you’d seen that happen, if you had the slightest fever, headache or cough, you’d just pretend you didn’t. We had people pouring with sweat and visibly ill, but pretending that they were absolutely fine, just to keep their cell. It was like the legless knight in Monty Python, shouting that it was just a flesh wound.” The collapse in prison healthcare also meant that non-covid problems went untreated. One lad had a horrendous toothache but wasn’t even allowed aspirin. His mum harangued the prison’s governor on Twitter until he was finally given proper treatment.

As in the outside world, the prison lockdowns had a catastrophic impact on inmates’ mental health. One told me of the terrible depression and anxiety on his wing: “People are absolutely at their wits end. They’re threatening to climb on the roof and kick the shit out of people.”

When I was in Wandsworth I worked as a Listener, trusted prisoners trained by the Samaritans to prevent suicides, but this vital service was stopped during the pandemic. A resident of one prison said “There were about four or five suicides while I was there. A lad owed £400 for spice [A synthetic form of cannabis]. He called his mum and she couldn’t pay it. She got worried and rang the jail, but before they got to him he’d died by hanging.” This is not an isolated incident, in May 2020 there were five suicides in just six days across the prison estate.[iv] The number of prisoners on suicide watch has shot up[v], and self-harm in women’s prisons has hit a record high[vi].

A lot of this anguish stems from inmates being separated from their families, as most visits have been cancelled since last March. You might have little sympathy for the plight of law breakers, but these brutal measures have also irreparably harmed thousands of innocent kids. Barnardo’s estimates that more than 200,000 children currently have a parent in prison[vii]. An anguished mother told me that her son hadn’t see his father for eight months, “Our lives have been destroyed.”

When I was in jail, I was able to see my son for an hour every week, which was a vital lifeline to maintaining our relationship. But now kids have been separated from their parents for up to a year, which is unspeakably cruel. If people are lucky they can sometimes access monthly prison video calls – aka “Purple Visits” – which are loathed by families. The technology is programmed to shut down if someone unauthorised enters the shot, but this is painfully unreliable. “The video cuts out every time my son moves, which is so distressing and just upsets him further. He hardly eats and has gone off his food, it’s soul destroying.” The mother sent me a photo of her son hugging a pillow which has a photo of his dad, which reduced me to tears.

Another mother told me about a physical visit she had last September, after six long months of separation. The toddler spontaneously hugged the father, breaking the necessary social distancing rules, so the prison promptly wrote to the mother banning the child indefinitely. I posted this astonishing letter on Twitter, and the decision was swiftly overturned.

At the start of pandemic, the Justice Secretary Robert Buckland promised to release 4,000 low risk prisoners slightly early, including 70 pregnant women, to create vital space for quarantining[viii] [ix]. With depressing predictability, the authorities completely bungled the entire process. Only 275 of the 4,000 eligible prisoners were ever released[x], and only 21 of pregnant women[xi] [xii]. This is especially shameful when compared to other countries. Iran, not normally associated with progressive human rights, gave compassionate leave to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who had been detained on trumped up spying charges[xiii].

As the first lockdown eased in late 2020, HM Inspectorate of Prisons was finally allowed to enter some jails. The watchdog released a damning report this week revealing a decline in mental and physical health, and a rise in drug taking and self-harm. The inspectorate also highlighted a collapse in pre-release rehabilitation work, making ex-offenders ill equipped for life after prison which means more will turn back to crime.

There’s no question that most prison officers have performed a heroic service over the past year, and risk their lives every day. I’ve long demanded that officers should have full key worker status, and must be high up the vaccination list. But I was appalled by a spate of tasteless Tiktok videos of officers dancing in prison yards, often in full view of incarcerated inmates who hadn’t exercised for weeks.

These stories have all come from conversations I’ve recorded with dozens of prisoners for a podcast series, also called A Bit of a Stretch. But I wanted do more to help those stuck inside, so I asked my north London media friends to hand over their spare books which I drove to HMP Pentonville. I got a lovely note from the librarian saying how these were very well received on the wings. With the help of other authors including Antony Horrowitz, Deborah Moggach and Sathnam Sanghera, I’ve started Bang Up Books and convinced leading publishers to donate over ten thousand books to twenty prisons. These should hopefully ease the appalling suffering in our shamefully underfunded prisons, and maybe encourage the inmates towards a more enlightened path.

 

[i] https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/ellen-degeneres-coronavirus-jail-show-watch-a9453941.html

[ii] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/measures-announced-to-protect-nhs-from-coronavirus-risk-in-prisons

[iii] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52449920

[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/28/alarm-over-five-suicides-in-six-days-at-prisons-in-england-and-wales

[v] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/10/number-of-prisoners-in-england-and-wales-on-suicide-watch-rises-steeply

[vi] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/28/self-harm-among-female-prisoners-in-england-and-wales-at-record-high

[vii] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29369970

[viii] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/31/70-pregnant-women-mothers-released-prison-early-combat-coronavirus/

[ix] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/04/up-to-4000-inmates-to-be-temporarily-released-in-england-and-wales

[x] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/30/we-need-far-more-coronavirus-tests-in-british-prisons

[xi] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/12/coronavirus-only-55-prisoners-early-release-england-wales

[xii] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/19/prisons-inspector-england-wales-warns-of-mental-health-problems-from-severe-coronavirus-restrictions

[xiii] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/may/20/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-stay-out-of-prison-until-iran-makes-decision-on-fate

 

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Good Vibrations has worked in prisons and young offender institutions since 2003. We see the destructive effects on people of living within our overstretched, under-resourced criminal justice system. We want to understand how people can be better supported before, during and after their contact with the criminal justice system.  We have commissioned a series of blogs from a range of experts, including those with lived experience and their families. Every Thursday for the next four months, we will bring a different voice with their own unique perspective and ideas. At the end of the series we will publish a report drawing together the themes and recommendations.

No. 5 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system.

Author: Charlotte Wise, Occupational Therapist based at HMP Stoke Heath

 

The role of an occupational therapist can vary depending on the area of practice but occupational therapy takes on a whole person approach to both mental and physical well-being in order to enable an individual to achieve their full potential (Royal College of Occupational Therapy, 2020).

I found occupational therapy when I was working in a medium secure hospital. The occupational therapists always appeared happy and keen to engage individuals. They offered the patients a variety of opportunities to participate in meaningful occupations including assessing self-care tasks, developing domestic skills, increasing leisure activities with an aim to encourage service users to be more independent and develop a positive daily routine.

The profession provided me with the opportunity to fulfil my passion – I had always been keen to work with individuals with mental health issues and a forensic history. I was keen to know why people commit crime, what leads them to these decisions in life, and to think about how I could help them rebuild their lives.

Over four years ago, I started working in the secondary mental health team at HMP Stoke Heath. I was keen to think about how I could apply my occupational therapy skills to the service users in the prison establishment and make improvements to their lives.

Much of the work I started and still do with the individuals on my caseload involves psychological interventions such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or Compassion Focused Therapy. This has great benefits to the individuals I work with, as being able to recognise and manage emotions more effectively can impact on their thoughts, feelings and behaviours, which will hopefully keep them out of trouble.

As my role developed further, I was keen to be more focused on the occupational therapy element of my practice and I started to introduce some new interventions to service users. This included a Recovery through Activity weekly group programme and working with the Good Vibrations team to offer a week-long intervention. These offered service users opportunities to engage in new occupations and make them think about activities that they used to enjoy.

Feedback from Recovery through Activity project indicated positive benefits for all participants involved. One patient reported that he had started to engage more in physical activities, and as a result he was sleeping better at night and getting up earlier. Following the Good Vibrations project, individuals reported that they felt better about themselves, felt happier, were feeling more confident, had improved relationships with others, improved listening skills and started taking part in more activities and groups.

At the present time, there are increased COVID restrictions in the prison establishment, meaning that prisoners are in their cells for long periods of the time, often up to 23 hours a day. During this time, I wanted to continue to utilise my occupational therapy skills, encouraging individuals to maintain a positive daily routine and engage in meaningful activities.

For the past 12 months, I have reached out to a significant number of prisoners to offer them additional distraction materials including colouring, puzzles, board games, relaxation activities, in-cell workouts and competitions. This has been a great opportunity to spread the work about my role and how we can help others even in the restrictions which are forced upon us.

The occupational therapy service is available for all the prisoners who reside at HMP Stoke Heath, they can be referred via a healthcare professional, prison staff or self-refer. However, there is only me, and there are 700 prisoners in the establishment, so as a result I am unable to help everyone. I hope that, in the future, there will be an opportunity for the employment of another occupational therapist to assist with providing further meaningful occupations to the prisoners here, and add to what is already available through education and vocational opportunities.

I feel the role of the occupational therapist can have a significant impact in the prison environment, offering individuals additional chances and opportunities which they may not have experienced in the community. Occupational therapists will look at the person as a whole and address what the person would like to achieve, their goals and their ambitions. Encouraging individuals to focus on what they would want to achieve, as opposed to what they are being asked to do in a sentence plan, makes this more person-centred. Increasing the focus onto the individuals can encourage empowerment and hope, increase their self-esteem and self-confidence. Developing these skills could assist individuals on leaving custody.

It is difficult to know whether occupational therapy has an impact on reoffending rates. However, I can only presume that if people have other occupations to engage in, feel more motivated to engage in pro-social activities and feel more positive about themselves, this can only have good effects on their physical and mental well-being.

 

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Good Vibrations has worked in prisons and young offender institutions since 2003. We see the destructive effects on people of living within our overstretched, under-resourced criminal justice system. We want to understand how people can be better supported before, during and after their contact with the criminal justice system.  We have commissioned a series of blogs from a range of experts, including those with lived experience and their families. Every Thursday for the next four months, we will bring a different voice with their own unique perspective and ideas. At the end of the series we will publish a report drawing together the themes and recommendations.

No. 4 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system.

Author: Sarah Hartley, Operational Lead for Creative Arts and Enrichment at Novus. Novus delivers education, rehabilitation support and opportunity to 60,000 adults and young people in custody and in the community across England and Wales.

 

Creative arts’ place in a rehabilitative culture

My passion for the arts is at the core of who I am. Through my own challenges within education (I am dyslexic), it has always been the creative subjects that I have felt connected with, to a point where any further study I took on beyond school was all art based.

I pursued a path I enjoyed, and these experiences and opportunities are what shaped the direction of my career. I believe that my own connection with art, and knowing the empowerment it gave me, has meant that I have gravitated, either consciously or subconsciously, to work with ‘disconnected’ groups in society – people with mental health and complex needs, elderly people and those in the criminal justice system.

As a creative practitioner, I use creativity in its many forms as a platform to empower and give autonomy and agency to the individual. In enabling opportunities for participants to experience new things and express themselves freely, I have seen how this can lead to an increase in self-esteem and pride in their achievements.

I have worked within the criminal justice system for Novus for 15 years. During this time, I have seen first-hand the shifts in people’s behaviours, self-worth, confidence and attitudes through their engagement in the arts, and how this then translates into positively impacting on the transformative nature of the sector.

Our aim at Novus is to champion the arts and its value to society, the communities we work in and the learners that we support, ultimately contributing to reducing reoffending.

Creative thinking and innovation are key components to improving employability and social development. The opportunities that engagement in the arts and culture present offer an excellent environment in which our learners can grow. It is by offering engaging and challenging activities and opportunities within arts and culture that we will encourage learners to make a valuable contribution to their surroundings.

In my role as Operational Lead for Creative Arts and Enrichment, it is my privilege to create spaces that enable opportunities for those in prison to engage in art. I understand the positive contribution that art can make in the criminal justice sector. The space created empowers an individual to explore and embrace new experiences, helping shape a positive identity.

For me, there are two main benefits for engaging in the arts, both of which are intrinsically linked:

• the value of arts in enabling self-development
• how self-development aligns to a rehabilitative culture.

An example of this can be seen in the collaborative work we do with the Tate, and in particular the national project, ‘A Future I can Love’, which I led in 2020. The project ran from March to October. Novus learners in prisons and young offender institutions across England and Wales were invited to respond to a brief developed in conjunction with the Tate, based on the Tate Exchange theme for the year, ‘Love’.

The brief was devised to be embedded into existing education provision, enhancing curriculum areas through project based learning, and empowering individuals to shape the project outcomes. The pieces created were to be part of an external showcase to increase awareness around ways in which engagement in creative activity supports rehabilitation along with supporting community cohesion and reducing stigma.

The success of this project was amazing: 389 learners from 52 establishments created 515 creative pieces, supported by 130 Novus colleagues plus a wider group of HMPPS and G4S colleagues. Given that the project was rolled out and completed in a global pandemic, within the national restrictions in place across the prison estate, this was a great achievement. People saw the project as a meaningful opportunity, a platform for positive engagement, and a way of using the imagination to mentally escape from the circumstance they faced due to the pandemic.

There is an ongoing debate around the value attributed to creative work within the criminal justice system. The prime function of the prison system is to protect the public, keep prisoners safe, support rehabilitation and reduce reoffending. So, it can be challenging to introduce an offer such as the creative arts as an integral part of supporting a prison’s aims and objectives.

While there is research that supports the value of the arts, there continues to be challenges around what is satisfactory for commissioners and funders. Demonstrating the impact that creative practice has on reducing reoffending is a piece of work which continues.

However, the pandemic has shown that there appears to be a greater reactiveness to alternative approaches, with the recognition that these can support individuals in valuable ways, such as with their wellbeing and mental health. It is now up to us to harness this acceptance and drive forward the importance and value of the creative arts to rehabilitation.

I’ve seen how the arts can change a person’s life. Martin* used his time in prison to embrace the learning that was on offer, building on his interests and skills in art and design. Whilst at HMP Buckley Hall he enrolled with the Novus education department, where he was able to build on his education and reading to help him move forward to his ultimate aim of a career in interior design. As he neared the end of his sentence, Martin transferred to HMP Thorn Cross, where he became an art mentor, and took part in the first collaborative project between Novus and Tate Liverpool. He was supported by the Novus team to build on his qualifications, both in prison and enrolling at a local college where he attended on release on temporary licence (ROTL). Before his release Martin applied to go to university, and was immediately accepted. Since then, Martin has completed his degree in Interior Design, achieving a First Class Honours, and is now undertaking a Masters in Building Information Modelling (BIM).

Martin says: “All the experiences I’ve had have allowed me to grow as a person, and my journey continues, to get myself into a career where I can provide for myself, so I can rise above my past and create a more prosperous and healthy future for my future family. My sentence will never define my personality or stop me from becoming the better person and achieving success.”

(*Martin is not the real name of the individual)

Note: the featured picture for this blog was created by a learner at HMP Thorn Cross in response to the ‘Future I  Can Love’ project.

 

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Good Vibrations has worked in prisons and young offender institutions since 2003. We see the destructive effects on people of living within our overstretched, under-resourced criminal justice system. We want to understand how people can be better supported before, during and after their contact with the criminal justice system.  We have commissioned a series of blogs from a range of experts, including those with lived experience and their families. Every Thursday for the next four months, we will bring a different voice with their own unique perspective and ideas. At the end of the series we will publish a report drawing together the themes and recommendations.

No. 3 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system.

Author: Laurence Rugg, Facilitator, Good Vibrations

 

“Punishment is the last and least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.”  John Ruskin (1819 – 1900 art critic and prominent social thinker and philanthropist).

Many of our prisons date from the late nineteenth century. They are places with huge chapels. God was seen as the answer to problems. They reflect the notion of many Victorians that God, in whom most believed, together with punishment and justice, would bring the changes needed in society. Even the very architectural additions such as the scales of justice that form part of the iron railings which surround HMP Leeds reflect this. How much is this relevant to today’s society? Sadly it seems to be at the core in many prisons. Sadly much of society still believes justice is served by punishment. And yet the figures for repeat offending remain persistently high, surely reflecting that punishment has been of little effect. There must be another way.

Equally, the education act of 1870 began compulsory education for all. Before that it had been the preserve of religious societies who provided school places so that the teaching of reading would give children the wherewithal to read the Bible. In truth, it was brought in to address the problem of child labour, to stop children being sent up chimneys. Again, as with prisons, schools were brought in to address societal issues. As with prisons they missed the mark.Not only did they do that in Victorian times but they continue to do it to this day. How many children fail at school because it doesn’t seem to address their needs? How many of those children go on to end up in the prison system? Many of the children in today’s gangs have failed to engage with schooling in any positive way.

Clearly there are also other factors which also affect these issues, but they remain issues which see prisons and schools failing for so many people in society. The reason for this failure is because society in general doesn’t address the needs of the very individuals staring them in the face. In the case of prisons, problems have continued because of both society’s lack of interest and, of late, because of the severe cuts that were made to the prison service in 2010. Things that were being developed were the first things the coalition axed. As ever, that is always the case with the arts. Similarly, Tony Blair’s mantra of “Education, education, education” had a hollow ring as the curriculum narrowed, teaching to tests and the dead hand of OFSTED proclaimed that schools were failing if they didn’t achieve the requisite number of grade A to C GCSEs. I believe the two issues are directly linked. This is why I mention them in the same breath. It is why many of us who think, as did several Victorian philanthropists, that change only comes about when you deal with what is actually there, and explore the rich possibilities a group of people could present, if dealt with in a practical and sensitive way. What we have is a society that, in general, only cares about itself. A society which is driven by money and what it can buy rather than a society which cares about its fellow human beings, that cares about the folk with mental health issues, personality disorders, drug problems and people who just don’t cope well with many things they encounter in life generally. Surely this is where reform is needed and where organisations like Good Vibrations come into the frame, both to provide help for those people in prison or out in society.

I joined Good Vibrations seventeen years ago at its inception. Cathy, its founder, rang me to ask how using the gamelan worked with prisoners. She had heard I’d run a course at HMP Hull. It was a question I couldn’t answer. As far as I’m concerned folk in prison are just another set of people. I had done projects with various community groups and this was just another group albeit with different needs. If anything was different it was that people in prison, as with other places, quickly become institutionalised. That’s one of the glorious things about Good Vibrations that folk often say, “ I forgot where I was.” The effect of the music and nature of the work takes them into a different space, where they can forget, for a while, their present concerns. It relaxes them.

What Good Vibrations can and does do is provide a stimulus to build confidence to work as part of a group and produce something they have made together. This is no mean achievement for anyone, let alone people who are locked up. To this end, we facilitate most of the time rather than dishing out instructions for what is required, although that isn’t entirely excluded. To get this to happen demands a lot of faith in the product – creativity. This is never straightforward and easy because it demands that the facilitator encourages people to talk, listen and discuss. Again, the most common feedbacks are, “I was listened to” and “I was treated as a human being.” But what does this say about the experience of many in prison? One of the officers working on a PIPE (psychologically informed, planned environment) unit simply said, “When you open up in the morning it doesn’t hurt to ask how they are today.” And in one such unit I visited I asked a prisoner what they thought was different about being on a PIPE unit. He said, “Well, when you come back from a course an officer says, how did it go? They show an interest in you.” Simple, but very human things. Things missing in institutions which all too often simply don’t care.

It would be so good if changes could be made in prisons that seriously address such issues, where officers are given training in psychology and interpersonal skills. This costs money but even more than that – a will to make tackling the issue of reducing reoffending real and crucial. It needs people with skills to turn people around by providing the right environment to make this happen. Such is the case in Norway where they reckon they can do this, at most, over a timescale of seven years! Opportunities have been missed. When many officers retired in 2010, a priority could have been made to recruit and skill up those new recruits. However, the only thought at the time was to save money! In addition, to go back to my point at the beginning “society still believes justice is served by punishment.” Society doesn’t care.

I really appreciate the experiences I have had in working for Good Vibrations. Knowing that a group who may have been difficult to manage can pull themselves together to produce a performance on the last day of a course is so good. That’s because they really don’t want to let themselves down. That is part of what they’ve learnt in a week. They have found some self respect and what it is to be part of a group. I think the important issue to keep in mind is that although we use the gamelan to create music our courses are not primarily about making music but about providing a space for people to develop confidence, team working, creativity and a sense of worth. A facilitator uses his or her psychological skills to develop all these things in the short space of a  week. It sharpens ones ability to push things in a certain way, to let things go, to give people space to take on things they may never have dreamt of. Working for Good Vibrations isn’t always easy. It has changed the way I view so many things. It has changed my life.

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Good Vibrations has worked in prisons and young offender institutions since 2003. We see the destructive effects on people of living within our overstretched, under-resourced criminal justice system. We want to understand how people can be better supported before, during and after their contact with the criminal justice system.  We have commissioned a series of blogs from a range of experts, including those with lived experience and their families. Every Thursday for the next four months, we will bring a different voice with their own unique perspective and ideas. At the end of the series we will publish a report drawing together the themes and recommendations.

No. 2 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system.

Author: Sara Lee, Artistic Director, Irene Taylor Trust

 

“The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a by-product. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society.” Dana Gioia

I’m fortunate enough to spend my working life observing discovery, positivity and success. The majority of these events have happened away from the public eye so haven’t been lauded by thousands, but each and every one has had long lasting and sometimes life changing impacts on those who have experienced them.

Since 1984, I’ve been working as a musician in HM Prisons. The role has taken on various guises, formerly as music co-ordinator at HMP Wormwood Scrubs and latterly, as Artistic Director of the Irene Taylor Trust, an organisation which is committed to delivering imaginative and creative music projects with people in the criminal justice system and those outside who remain in touch with it.

What started as a 2 hour a week evening class in HMP Wormwood Scrubs quickly turned into a full-time job lasting 11 years. Working there had a profound impact on me as a musician and a human, as I witnessed the numerous personal and social benefits creating music offered the prisoners, as well as staff and the prison itself.  Over 3 decades later, I still see the worth of having music in prisons, maybe more so now as society is fractured and there are huge divides between the haves and have nots. It really does make a positive difference.

In the 1980s and 90s, the governor and staff at the Scrubs realised the vital role the arts could play in supporting prisoners through their sentence. The men were engaged, enthused, and committed, which of course spilled over onto the wings. In the Scrubs, all the arts tutors were given the freedom to experiment, which meant the offer was rich, ever changing, exciting, and rewarding, all the things we know the arts to be. We were encouraged to take things as far as our imaginations and prison security would let us, and there was always a creative project to work on. We would regularly receive letters from prisoners who had moved on, saying it was the best time they’d had in their lives, never imagining they’d have those times in prison.  The arts, and in this instance, music, was seen as vital for the wellbeing of the prisoners and the whole prison community.

Unsurprisingly, the education offer in prisons has changed considerably over the years. Little was written about it in the 1980s but at that time, offering a wide variety of educational, vocational and recreational opportunities to those in custody was a given. Crucially, the arts were embedded within these programmes, providing a vital complement to the more traditional subjects. I witnessed how access to the arts gave people the chance to break the cycle, creating additional opportunities for themselves and helping them live more productively. What I observe now is quite different.

 

The arts can have a positive impact on individuals and communities

Research shows that societies with higher levels of education and learning tend to be healthier, experience lower crime rates and greater equality amongst its citizens. This makes education in prisons absolutely key, bearing in mind that a high percentage of those who find themselves in custody have few qualifications, arriving there from often chaotic and unstructured lives. Education enhances prospects, and while no-one would dispute the fact that basic skills in English and maths are required for so much that happens in life, if the offer included the arts on a large scale, society would likely see more beneficial results. If education programmes offer more variety, people will have more opportunities when they leave prison. A broader and more holistic offer would create more all-round human beings. They would not only have the traditional qualifications with which to enter the world, but also the experience of engaging and experimenting with things they might be passionate about, where you come into contact with different people and learn new things which expand your mind. 

I had the opportunity to see how other countries viewed music as part of education and rehabilitation when I visited the US and Norway on a Churchill Fellowship in 2015. The systems in both countries understood the social value of the arts; particularly the intrinsic benefits they can have, such as enjoyment, enrichment, the reduction of feelings of isolation, and how these benefits can have a positive impact on communities.

From day one of a prison sentence in Norway, prisoners are fully occupied with education and work in preparation for release, no matter how long their sentence. Education is seen as a gateway. In prisons it receives the same rate of pay as other work and is considered vital to develop healthy, well-functioning individuals. Good quality and varied learning is also seen as vital to future employment possibilities and music played a key role in the daily life of every prison I visited in Norway. There was a clear distinction between education and activity and music sat happily in both camps. A conversation with the Governor of Halden made it clear why this was:

“Some people want to learn about it, some people just want to enjoy it. Both of these things are good which is why both things happen.”

Staff confirmed the main goal was to provide formal education, but they were committed to using music as a tool to achieve that. They understood that to learn music was a goal in itself but outlined how it helped them create a beneficial atmosphere for other learning.

It was also acknowledged that whilst it is of vital importance, a job is only for 7 or so hours a day, and this is what encouraged them to offer opportunities to help fill people’s down time. They fully support music and arts as core subjects. They believe that it gives people positive activities after work and at weekends, times when people aren’t fully focussed and occupied, when poor decisions can be made. UK prisons should do this too. Participation in any kind of arts activity which can be continued in leisure time could be the thing which keeps individuals focussed, fulfilled, and moving forwards.

“It gives me a substitute for drugs, for something to focus on.” (ITT Sounding Out participant)

In the US, politicians, superintendents and operational staff, felt strongly that music had a vital role to play in helping prepare prisoners for work by developing transferrable skills. I was told; it’s often an easier ‘start point’ for prisoners and offers a way in to learning for people who may struggle with the more traditional methods; it’s enjoyable and people feel success through doing it; traditional subjects don’t teach teamwork and communication in the same way as music does; to an employer, it’s more valuable to see someone can work and communicate effectively in a group than be shown a piece of paper which says they can sit in a room and pass an exam.

 

Creating Music. Transforming Futures

My experience seeing the profound effect music had on the men I worked with in Scrubs gave the Irene Taylor Trust its mission, which is, quite simply, ‘Creating music. Transforming Futures’. Over 25 years, taking part in creative activity via our Music in Prisons projects and our Musician in Residence placements has given thousands of people a lifeline whilst inside, with our Sounding Out programme offering ongoing support to those who wish to continue working with us after their release. Our projects do not set out to create ‘the next big artist’, they set out to bring people together to be inquisitive, learn, experiment, share and enjoy.

“These people [Sounding Out staff] can help you to make more music and, in exchange, actually it stops you from re-offending as well because if your focus has changed now, that stops you from re-offending as well.” (ITT Sounding Out participant)

Whether having music and the arts available as core subjects in prison works or not, is dependent on what you measure success by. The current rates of recidivism and the lack of arts provision in many prisons could mean it’s worth giving it a go, as there’s nothing to lose. Music and the arts won’t have all the answers – no one thing has all the answers – but my experience over the years has shown that it plays an enormous part in people’s wellbeing, their creativity, their contentment and belief in their abilities. This in turn leads to more cohesion, less fragmentation, wider opportunities and, crucially, more rounded human beings who have a stake in society.

Over the past year, we’ve all learned how vital the arts are. We’ve looked to music, to film, to all forms of creativity to alleviate the pressure of living through a pandemic. Those in prison are no different. Unsurprisingly, it was the arts organisations who were contacted first, to see what they could offer to those who might be behind their door for 23 hours a day. Calling these offers ‘distraction packs’ completely missed the point, that it was the arts that was looked to first, as everyone knows the benefits they bring. The arts should never be an afterthought. Unfortunately, over the years, this wonderful opportunity and experience with so much to offer has, in many places, become more of an add on, if it exists at all. Yet since March 2020 the arts have given us all relief, as we’ve listened to music, painted pictures and watched films. They’re so often seen as a hobby, but for millions of us, both inside and out, whatever we turned to may well have been a lifeline.

 

Let’s take the leap which everyone knows will not fail

Maybe we should trial an Arts Prison, where each person is given access to a full range of arts opportunities on a regular basis, and anyone signing up would be paid at a rate equivalent to other prison industries, giving it the respect it deserves. What a fulfilling and beneficial place that would be to serve a sentence, and it would provide some fascinating research. If an Arts Prison is a step too far, then we should ensure that arts subjects sit alongside the other offers, recognising and celebrating it for the impact we all know it has.

The good news is there are several incredible arts organisations and facilitators out there, all of whom, over the years, have been trying to find a regular way into prisons to share their knowledge and experience with prisoners.

The less good news is that funding will need to be made available without questioning what the programmes may cost. Many of these artists have decades of training and experience behind them which should be acknowledged.

We’re not asking the impossible. Almost everything is in place for it to happen, bar a slight shift in accepting that not all funding needs to support programmes with direct work-related outcomes. Programmes don’t need to be accredited, but of course they can be. There should be the option. The artists and organisations with the imagination, drive and a huge amount of experience are in place. Prisoners are there, ready and waiting. We need to take a leap which everyone knows will not fail, and make sure a range of music and the arts is there and available, and that every prisoner has access to it.

 

Twitter & Facebook @MusicinPrisons
Instagram @irenetaylortrustmusic
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Website: https://irenetaylortrust.com/

 

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Good Vibrations has worked in prisons and young offender institutions since 2003. We see the destructive effects on people of living within our overstretched, under-resourced criminal justice system. We want to understand how people can be better supported before, during and after their contact with the criminal justice system.  We have commissioned a series of blogs from a range of experts, including those with lived experience and their families. Every Thursday for the next four months, we will bring a different voice with their own unique perspective and ideas. At the end of the series we will publish a report drawing together the themes and recommendations.