Abstract
Rideout’s Creative Prison was a unique arts project involving artists, architects, prisoners and prison staff. Originally delivered in the mid-noughties at HMP Gartree in the UK, this project set out to address issues of prison design from the perspectives of those who live and work there. Furthermore, it made the case for prison design to be focused foremost on themes of education and creativity rather than on security. This chapter, written by one of the core team, revisits the project by drawing on the original Creative Prison publication and offering some reflections on the process, outcomes and possible legacy.
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Notes
- 1.
The Creative Prison: Creative Thinking in the Prison Estate (2006) and The Creative Prison: Inside the Architecture - The Role of Consultation (2007).
- 2.
The original document contained an appendix about Paterson, written by Professor Alyson Brown, Edge Hill Univerity. It has not been included here in the interests of brevity, but it is worth noting that Paterson’s famous phrase, ‘Men come to prison as a punishment not for punishment’ was extremely influential upon this project.
- 3.
‘Enhanced status’ refers to the Prison Service’s Incentives and Earned Privileges system of rewards and punishments.. A prisoner who achieves ‘enhanced status’ is someone who has demonstrated a high level of engagement in the prison regime and maintained good behaviour over a set period of time.
- 4.
The Induction and Resettlement Unit as envisaged for HMP Paterson was conceived as something similar to those existing in contemporary English prisons. Similar to ‘intake units’ in US prisons, it would house the reception area and a number of rooms for prisoner accommodation, and would be the first port of call for any prisoner entering the prison, as well as where prisoners go before they leave the prison, either for release or for transfer to another institution.
- 5.
This was the average size of new build single prison cells in England at the time of original publication.
- 6.
‘Listeners’ are prisoners who have been trained to provide emotional support for peers. The Listener Scheme is run by The Samaritans, a well known UK charity that offers 24 hour telephone support for anyone in distress. The Listener Scheme was first established in 1991 and is present in almost all prisons in the UK.
- 7.
This principle of removal is the same as that practised in prison-based therapeutic communities where one can be ‘deselected’ or, for those familiar with system of ‘open’ prisons in England, the same if a prisoner breaks the rules of the open conditions and they are returned to a ‘closed’ prison.
- 8.
Whilst no longer running in 2020, there are now many examples of similar initiatives, perhaps the most successful of which has been the partnership between Railtrack and the Prison Service.
- 9.
These ideas were very much informed by technology available at the time. Examples of RFID—Radio Frequency Identification tags include those found on certain items in supermarkets.
- 10.
Since the original publication of the document, a limited version of such a scheme, EMAP (Email A Prisoner), has been introduced in most prisons across the UK. This scheme currently allows family members and friends to email a prisoner via a website. These emails are then printed out and given to the recipient. Some prisons enable the opportunity of a reply but not all.
- 11.
Again, this thinking was informed by what was available in prison at the time of the consultation. In all likelihood we would now advocate for telephones to be available in all cells.
- 12.
Daily Express, 1 June 2006, P.30.
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Hewish, S. (2023). The Creative Prison Revisited. In: Moran, D., Jewkes, Y., Blount-Hill, KL., St. John, V. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Design. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11972-9_6
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