Sarah Doxat-Pratt

The place of the arts within prisons is a subject that receives much attention in both scholarship and in charitable activity. In recognition of the many personal and social benefits that the arts can bring to individuals and society, many arts practitioners, criminal justice workers, philanthropic funders and researchers are interested in how these benefits could apply in prisons and how to harness those benefits.

Prison has long been understood to be a painful experience for those imprisoned: studies of prison life around the world over many decades have consistently shown that imprisonment constitutes a series of pains or deprivations that are difficult to endure.¹ These pains are not just present while in prison, but continue to affect people after release, making it harder for ex-prisoners to live in the community. This can serve to exacerbate existing exclusionary circumstances for those involved in the criminal justice system, who are more likely than the general population to have experienced childhood trauma, difficulties in school, abuse, unemployment and homelessness.²

In this article, I aim to provide an overview of the impact of arts projects in prisons. I begin by presenting some examples of the types of artistic practice taking place in prisons, largely using examples from western Europe and the US. I then suggest a number of ways that the impact of the arts in prisons can be understood and articulated, drawing on the wealth of scholarly and evaluative literature from around the world: firstly discussing the ways that arts projects can ameliorate some of the pains of prison life, then suggesting ways that arts projects can provide opportunities for personal transformation. I end by presenting some emerging debates in the field.

The arts in prisons

In discussing the role of the arts in prisons, it is important to note that I am specifically focused here on the role of externally organised and participatory artistic projects. Although there is a long history of personal and grassroots artistic practice in prisons, these activities are not widely researched. This article, therefore, focuses on the role of arts projects in prisons – creative activities organised by external facilitators or organisations. I focus on the role of participatory arts projects, that is, projects in which prisoners join in with artistic activity (rather than instances where prisoners watch professional performances). Worldwide, there are myriad examples of such arts projects that could be drawn on, and so here I will outline common approaches to arts practice in prisons, and particularly those that are the subject of research.³

Many projects involve musical activity, such as group music-making, songwriting, instrument learning and music production. Commonly, these would involve one or more professional musicians going into prison and working with small to medium-sized groups of prisoners (perhaps between five and twenty-five) to make music together, producing original material or recreating known material with the instruments available to them. Another common art-form used in prisons is drama. Some organisations, for example Shakespeare Behind Bars in the US,⁴ have worked in prisons to produce existing plays with prisoners. More frequently, drama projects involve actors or writers using theatre exercises with prisoners to create new characters and storylines, to explore scenarios as a group, produce scripts, or to put together a piece of original work that could be performed to an audience. Some organisations then take this work and as well as performing within the prison produce professional versions of the plays that are performed nationally and internationally to broad audiences.⁵

Music and drama constitute a large proportion of prison-based arts projects. However, there are organisations and arts practitioners working with prisoners in all sorts of arts forms. As examples, Fine Cell Work provides sewing workshops in UK prisons,⁶ Animation Break was a storytelling and animation project run by De Rode Antraciet in Belgium,⁷ and the Arts in Corrections work of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts facilitates arts residencies from different cultural traditions.⁸

Among all arts projects, there are broad trends of practice. One common approach is to have a one-off intensive programme over a short period of time, such as one to two weeks, during which the prisoners are excused from their regular activities and the group work together every day. Alternatively, there might be a series of perhaps once- or twice-weekly sessions over the course of a limited number of weeks or months. Finally, although less commonly, there might be regular weekly sessions whereby an individual or group of prisoners are able to attend ongoingly as part of the usual prison regime. Typically, all of these projects would be facilitated by professionals who are not members of staff at the prison, although officers may oversee sessions and even join in from time to time. There is often a performance or public component – groups work towards performing what they have created to an audience comprised of prison staff, other prisoners, and perhaps invited loved ones from outside; in some instances, groups or individuals work towards having artwork that can be displayed or even sold publicly.

Although there are countries where prison arts projects are more common, they remain a fairly peripheral activity that engage only a small proportion of prisoners. Nevertheless, those who do take part tend to find them extremely valuable. The next sections outline some of the benefits of prison arts projects.

Mitigating the harms of imprisonment

One key purpose of providing arts projects in prison settings is to go some way to mitigating the pains and harms of imprisonment. It is well established that the arts can be a valuable tool for personal well-being. People use artistic practice as an emotional outlet, finding in their creative activities a form of stress-release and opportunities for cathartic self-expression. This has been found to be particularly poignant in a prison context. A range of research shows that prisoners find arts projects to be a way of psychologically escaping from normal prison life and a chance to do something stimulating and exciting. Some participants refer to feeling ‘human again’ as a result of participating in an arts project – pointing to the way they are treated by the facilitators, the group dynamic, and the activity itself as fundamentally humanising, in the face of the dehumanising world of prison. In my previous research I have suggested five ways that this type of escape and healing happens in practice.⁹ While that work was specifically related to prison music projects, the categories are applicable to arts projects more broadly.

Firstly, arts projects provide participants with occupied time – purposeful and stimulating activity that takes people out of the regimented monotony of much of prison life and into a space where time seems to move faster, providing a contrast to the boredom and lethargy. Secondly, arts projects can foster positivity. While prison experiences can vary, prisoners often define it as ‘negative’, whereas arts projects generate a positive atmosphere – as one music participant put it, there was ‘positive energy […] it’s positivity isn’t it, that’s what you need in prisons’.¹⁰ Arts projects are hard work but enjoyable and can be a chance to let loose in a healthy and refreshing way. They also, however, give an opportunity for more varied emotional exploration. Organisers structure the projects to ensure that they are safe spaces for emotional expression. As one music participant said, ‘It releases a lot of tension because you’re letting what’s in your head come out.’ In these contexts the unwritten social rules of prison wings – such as avoiding displays of vulnerability or heightened emotion – do not seem to apply. This is in part to do with the nature of the activity: many participants use their personal experiences to inform the artwork they create, thereby sharing something of themselves within a group setting.

Fourthly, this group setting stands out in contrast to the social dynamic that characterises much of prison life, and therefore arts projects can relieve some of the pains of imprisonment through the community they create. Through the positivity and the emotional openness, as well as the shared experience and desire for artistic progress, participants find that arts projects provide a different social space in which they can connect with new people. Music participants used words such as ‘camaraderie’, ‘respect’, ‘encouragement’ and ‘unity’ to describe the preferable nature of the social dynamic within the projects. Finally, arts projects can provide some kind of connection to the outside world. This connection is not always clearly defined, but a link outside of prison, whether physical or imagined, can feel very significant to participants. Facilitators who come in to lead sessions can represent the outside world to the participants, and thereby provide a sense of being able to connect with people unconnected to the criminal justice system, or a chance to ‘interact with society’ as one music participant put it. The new and different experiences also give participants something positive and different to talk about with loved ones over the phone or on visits. In these ways, arts projects can provide a bridge of sorts to the outside world, mitigating some of the sense of separation between prisoners and the non- prison community.

Prison arts projects, then, can go some way towards ameliorating the pains and harms of imprisonment. While these are in some ways short-term benefits, they can be an essential starting point for some of the other benefits that come from artistic participation.

Personal change

Another clear benefit of prison arts projects is in providing opportunities for participants to grow and develop in ways that can contribute to their future lives. This happens in many ways; here, I suggest three broad categories for understanding the potential for personal change: personal development, social capital, and identity change.

Personal development

Participating in arts projects can be an opportunity for developing beneficial personal skills and capacities. This often includes learning new skills or developing existing skills related to the specific art form(s) used in the project. Music projects provide opportunities for learning instrumental skills, lyric writing, music theory and production skills. Drama projects give opportunities for scriptwriting, storytelling, acting and behind-the-scenes elements of theatre such as props, set design and costume. Other arts projects provide opportunities for developing writing skills, drawing and visual art skills, sewing or textile design techniques and so on.

These skills are valuable to participants in and of themselves. But these experiences have frequently been found to contribute to ongoing learning. Many people in prisons have lower than average literacy and numeracy levels, few qualifications, and had poor experiences of school. Prisons offer all kinds of training and introductory qualifications, and for some arts participants their artistic skills are added to a portfolio of other skills and capacities that they are learning. For a significant number, however, the arts are a first step (back) into education or training, and the positive learning experience they have in their arts project encourages them to sign up for other, perhaps more formal, education or training courses. In that way, the arts can act as a stepping stone into other opportunities which can help them move forward with their lives.

Prison arts projects also encourage the development of personal capacities referred to variously in ways such as ‘human capital’, ‘intangibles’, or ‘soft skills’, such as focus, perseverance and patience. Participants will frequently mention capacities such as confidence and a sense of achievement as a valuable tool they have gained from their artistic experience. For some the very act of signing up and attending something new and unusual is a big step, and seeing a project through to the end confirmed the sense of confidence that this induces.

Social capital

Arts projects can also provide participants with opportunities for developing social capital. This includes the kinds of social skills that are typically said to be developed in arts projects everywhere: teamwork, communication, conflict resolution and so forth. Prison is a highly individualised environment, and opportunities for collaboration are rare. Group projects, especially those where there is an end product being worked towards such as a recording, performance or exhibition, can allow for and indeed require enhanced teamwork skills like listening, communicating one’s own position, productive disagreement, and reaching consensus. Such skills can be applicable in multiple other settings, including workplace environments and conversations with prison or probation officers. Participants also talk about applying these skills to their personal relationships. Indeed, some drama projects involve a degree of role-playing imagined conversations with parents, friends, children, or partners; these are included in the project as part of the exploration of decision-making and in creating character and scenes, but participants sometimes use them as ways of rehearsing conversations that they then have in real life with others, helping them work through relational issues.

As well as the skills learned, arts projects can be opportunities to create new social networks. This includes supportive friendships and networks within the prison – developing new connections with people who might previously have been rivals or strangers. Some find it enormously comforting to discover links with others and have a freedom to discuss with others more personal issues such as guilt over past actions, missing their children, or feeling homesick. Such connections come simply from spending time together but also from the expressive nature of the artistic work – developing new characters, scenes, songs, poems or artwork out of personal experiences gives people an outlet for their stories and brings the realisation of shared journeys.

New social opportunities also come through the facilitators, who can function as role models or be an inspiration to participants. Coming from outside, they may represent a part of society that prisoners have had little connection to previously. Being able to get to know them in this space gives participants new ideas and aspirations for career paths or pursuits that they did not know existed previously. In projects where there is an ongoing relationship between facilitator and participant, there can be a more direct networking opportunity. Facilitators become mentors who might provide further support, including targeted training, providing references, or drawing on their own networks to put participants in touch with other relevant services.

Identity change

The new experiences, skills and opportunities presented by arts projects can lead to shifts in how participants perceive themselves. For example, the newfound confidence that comes from successfully completing an arts project and creating a new artistic work can translate to seeing oneself as a talented person who is able to contribute to society. The sense of achievement leads people to a belief that they are capable of success and that this could happen in other contexts as well. Such processes can be a part of the shift from an offender-related identity such as ‘prisoner’ or ‘criminal’ to a new and more positive self-identity. For some arts participants these new identities take on specific roles: those of artist, musician, actor and so on.

Although this deeper transformation is significant for participants, it is important to be cautious when referencing the identity changes that can be brought about by prison arts projects. For if participating in arts projects can lead to a shift in the very nature of a person, this raises significant questions as to the power of the organisers and facilitators. Most arts facilitators would reject the notion that they are intentionally trying to create a certain type of person in their work. They are, however, giving opportunities for people to explore new identities and perhaps give new ways for participants to see themselves and be seen by others. This can lead to new aspirations, whereby participants can envision a different kind of life and want to put their newfound skills into practice in the world, such as by pursuing different hobbies or by working or volunteering in new spheres.

Discussion: critique and debates

Prison arts projects, then, have been found to ameliorate some of the pains and harms of imprisonment, and to be personally transformative. Practitioners continue to devote their energies to arts projects in prison settings because they remain convinced that the arts offer valuable experiences within prisons. Myriad reports and evaluations provide evidence supporting these findings, and many would make links from these outcomes to longer-term goals of reducing reoffending and contributing to desistance from crime. However, these should be considered with a critical eye. To finish, I will present two challenges which are emerging in practice and research to these narratives of impact which have been dominant in the literature. The purpose of this is not to undermine these longstanding findings but to encourage more critical engagement with wider systemic aspects of criminal justice.¹¹

Addressing the claim of the arts mitigating the pains and harms of imprisonment, there is a compelling argument that such claims risk using the harms of imprisonment to elevate the claims of arts impact without providing any attempt to confront these systemic inadequacies. There is an emerging school of thought suggesting that claims of value that relate to harm mitigation, such as the arts making prisoner participants feel human again, should be used to challenge the dehumanising nature of prison as much as to demonstrate the value of the arts.

Similarly, the focus on individual change has also received critique in recent years. While giving people in prison opportunities for personal development is important, it is increasingly seen as insufficient. Prisoner participants, practitioners and scholars have all recognised that prison-leavers will face many barriers to reintegration, including finding accommodation and employment, formal and informal stigma, relationship breakdown and being psychologically scarred by their incarceration. Indeed, even for those with criminal justice involvement who serve their sentences entirely in the community, having a conviction can be a challenge to integrating in society. Framing the benefits of the arts solely in terms of in-prison value or personal transformation ignores the many systemic issues and structural barriers to desistance and crime-reduction that cannot be solved only by the offender changing his or her own ways.

Therefore, a developing area of interest for both research and practice is in the ways that the arts might be transformative to others who engage in the process or with the artistic product, as well as for prisoner participants (or participants in the community with a criminal record). Drama organisations are using their work to share the stories of those in the criminal justice system, to highlight systemic inadequacies or challenge structural inequalities that lead to the criminalisation of certain groups, and to train frontline staff. A number of music projects focus on bringing together different communities in mutual hospitality and welcome, in the hopes that they might learn from one another. A recent example from Scotland is the Distant Voices music project,¹² which sought ‘to offer an alternative to the dominant discourse on re/integration which focuses on the readiness of the prisoner to leave custody, instead focusing on the public’s readiness to receive him or her “home”.’¹³ Indeed, organisations using all arts forms are showcasing their work in public fora, and there is a growing research interest in the impact that this has on the audiences who engage. Such work acknowledges the fact that to address the challenges of crime and desistance, some change might be necessary on the part of society as well as on the part of the offender. There is the possibility that engaging the public with artwork created by and with people in the criminal justice system can increase empathy and understanding, reduce stigma, and create a society more receptive to two- way engagement.

Notes

1. For an overview, see B. Crewe, ‘Depth, weight, tightness: Revisiting the pains of imprisonment’, Punishment&Society, 13 (2011), 509–529.
2. For more information, see for example the Prison Reform Trust in the UK, which releases regular ‘Bromley Briefings’ reports including statistics about the state of prisons and the circumstances of prisoners, available here: <https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/publications/>. See the winter 2021 edition (p. 22) for information about the social characteristics of adult prisoners.
3. The National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance has a list of forty organisations involved in such work, which gives a snapshot: <https://artsevidence.org.uk/organisations/arts-organisations/>. For a list of projects and connected evaluations from the US, see Gardner, Hager and Hillman, Prison Arts Resource Project:An Annotated Bibliography (2018), available online: <https://www. americansforthearts.org/sites/default/files/prisonartsresourceprojectapril20188.pdf>.
4. <https://shakespearebehindbars.org/>
5. For recent examples of such music and drama work in the UK, see the Inspiring Futures exhibition, available here: <https://artsincriminaljustice.org.uk/our-work/research/inspiring-futures/>.
6. <https://finecellwork.co.uk/>
7. <https://www.derodeantraciet.be/cursusaanbod/animation-break/>
8. <https://actaonline.org/program/arts-in-corrections/>
9. Sarah Doxat-Pratt, (2019) ‘Changing the Record: Reassessing effectiveness and value in prison music projects’ (doctoral thesis, University of Nottingham, 2019) <http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/ id/eprint/56101>.
10. Quotes here are taken from the doctoral research mentioned above.
11. For further critical perspectives, see L. Cheliotis, ‘Decorative Justice: Deconstructing the Relationship between the Arts and Imprisonment’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 3 (2014), 16–34.
12. <https://www.voxliminis.co.uk/projects/distant-voices/>
13. Crockett Thomas et al, ‘Mediating Punishment? Prisoners’ Songs as Relational “Problem-Solving” Devices’, Law Text Culture, 24 (2020), 138–162