Visiting Prisons: What rehabilitation looks like in practice.
For most people the thought of a prison conjures up a vision of high walls, numerous tall and heavy metal gates and small bare cells. However, behind those walls, gates and doors, many UK prisons run active programmes designed to genuinely change lives. They run courses, workshops and often small businesses aimed at reducing reoffending by equipping their inmates with valuable knowledge and practical skills.
Over the past few weeks, I have visited a number of Surrey’s prisons and have been encouraged – and often impressed – by learning what is being done to rehabilitate individuals; helping them to gain recognised qualifications, develop practical skills and build a route towards employment on release.
At HMP Coldingley, a Category C men’s resettlement prison in Bisley, inmates work in sign-making, printing and engineering workshops; in the gardens or the laundry, or as cleaners keeping the communal areas neat and tidy. They earn (small) wages and develop skills for life after release. They do so often alongside courses in numeracy, literacy, bookkeeping, business enterprise or IT. The Forward Trust, a social justice charity, runs family services, including a “Relationships Matter” programme that helps residents rebuild bonds with loved ones, and supports inmates to recover from addiction. The prison runs a substance-free living wing for those continuing their recovery.
HMP Coldingley has strengthened its focus on rehabilitation in recent months following a critical inspection report earlier this year. As a result, the prison has implemented a new drug strategy and an attendance bonus scheme to encourage more consistent attendance at work and courses.
HMP Send, a closed women’s prison near Ripley where most of the women serve long sentences up to and including life, takes a different, more therapeutic approach. HMP Send hosts one of the UK’s few democratic therapeutic communities, combining psychotherapy with communal living to help women reshape their identity and move toward long-term desistance from crime. Women in the therapeutic community live in single rooms with their own keys, in a more domestic setting than the rest of the prison and have a shared budget for hobbies and group activities. The prison also allows for some of the older inmates to live together.
There is a positive learning culture at the prison, which – alongside the amount of time spent unlocked – has helped to make sure that the women are engaged in the work and education based on their needs and what they might experience outside prison. Both the range of learning on offer and the array of recreational activities have expanded over recent years. There is a popular hairdressing salon; the charity Fine Cell Work provides opportunities for paid, professional craft projects and the Watts Gallery Trust runs weekly art workshops, which culminate in the very successful annual art exhibition “Our Time”. Many of the women work in the extensive gardens and polytunnels, where they grow vegetables and fruit either for their own consumption or for use by the Clink Charity in its events catering business. In turn, the Clink provides accredited horticultural training.
Support to encourage women to maintain and rebuild family ties is also strong, for instance family engagement workers run a course focused on the impact of addiction and childhood experiences on parenting.
Another closed women’s prison in Surrey, HMP Downview, in near Sutton and Banstead, hosted the UK’s first intensive drug and alcohol rehabilitation programme back in 1992. Today, it continues that focus, alongside a well-regarded offender personality disorder pathway offering individual and group therapy for prisoners with complex needs, and a bereavement and loss service that has reduced anxiety and depression among women who complete it.
HMP Downview offers a series of industry-backed vocational training and qualifications in beauty therapy, business administration, catering, customer services, functional skills, and hairdressing. On my joint visit with the High Sheriff of Greater London, Dhruv Patel CBE, we visited The Clink’ Charity’s professional kitchen which caters for its events management business; the highly impressive “Making for Change” sewing studio which allows women to gain qualifications in Fashion and Textiles in partnership with the London College of Fashion; the Upcycling Workshop launched in partnership with SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK, which processes discarded furniture from community recycling centres for re-use shops; and the Fine Cell Work workshop where the women learn how to embroider cushions, Christmas decorations and art works for sale.
The prisons work hard to create an environment of structured activity and routine, thereby creating stability for their inmates. All inmates are encouraged to participate, and the vast majority do, which has a noticeable positive impact on prison life. Despite serious issues of shortage of prison staff and probation officers and an increase in the prison population, the staff I met all had highly positive attitudes and a firm determination to improve people’s lives on release, thus preventing them from returning to a life of crime.
https://finecellwork.co.uk/?srsltid=AfmBOoqPZyf3c2FGTpis-hkwI9lEzIRFLhFxmg9qF0I2npqCnuGZ0lpa
