In normal times, the occupational therapy team at HMP Pentonville run a comprehensive group work service, including a wide range of arts activities – but Covid-19 has meant having to rethink everything. Lead Occupational Therapist and Wellbeing Centre Manager Deborah Murphy has written this guest blog on how adapting their activities for lockdown has created […]
In October 2019, the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance (NCJAA) embarked on a year-long local practice development project to scope arts in criminal justice settings in Buckinghamshire. Funded by the Rothschild Foundation, the project’s long-term aim is to inform sustainable models of delivery for quality arts in criminal justice across Buckinghamshire, and to support the […]
Alison Frater, Chair of the NCJAA, reflects on her conversations with arts practitioners and prison staff, and what their responses to the crisis tell us about the critical value of arts and culture for criminal justice settings in this moment. In recent weeks, I’ve been talking to artists and arts organisations who work with people […]
In this blog, National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance (NCJAA) Director Jessica Plant reflects on how the current Covid-19 crisis is affecting our network, the impact on arts in criminal justice settings, and what the NCJAA is doing to help. It has been nearly two weeks since the country went into lockdown to fight the spread […]
Listen to Dawn Harrison’s episode of the Crime and Consequence podcast: ‘Releasing your mind from prison’. Dawn Harrison is a Senior Interventions Coordinator for Changing Lives, a charity in the North-East of England. Her creative thinking in the fields of arts, culture and heritage underpins her work in the field of criminal justice. In the […]
In this blog, Daniel Anderson talks about how the arts saved his life and how he thinks it can improve the lives of other black people in contact with the criminal justice system. Drama, theatre and film. Where would I be without you? Prison? Dead? Masked rage, stress. An identity crisis and racism. I was […]
Jessica Plant, Director of the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance, reflects on the impact of Gareth Malone’s work at HMYOI Aylesbury and pays tribute to the hard work of pioneering arts organisations that have quietly driven change behind the scenes for over 30 years. I have had the pleasure and privilege of managing the National […]
