Liz and David’s mentoring story
Whilst applications come in for the 2022 scheme, we talked to mentor Liz, a theatre practitioner, and her mentee David, a prison officer, about what they got out of the scheme.
Making It Up: parents in prison connecting through stories
Give a Book workshop leader David Kendall joins us in this guest blog to share the importance of storytelling and how, over lockdown, the project has been keeping prisoners connected with their families. The Making It Up project from reading charity Give a Book supports parents in prison to bond with their children by creating [...]
The 2021 Creativity in Youth Justice Symposium
Bridging the gap in creativity and youth justice Having delivered arts activity in youth justice settings for over a decade, Xavier Fiddes has seen the sector go from strength to strength. Now Co-Director of In Focus Education & Development CiC, he’s building on his experiences to launch the Creativity in Youth Justice Symposium in March [...]
Adapting group music sessions for lockdown at HMP Pentonville
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 […]
Scoping arts in criminal justice across Buckinghamshire
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 […]
Creative writing at HMP Guys Marsh
Ella Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Bath Spa University, writes about her experience coordinating a creative writing course last year at HMP Guys Marsh. She shares an extract from the resulting anthology ‘Chrysalis Chronicles’, written by Kam, one of the men taking part. They said it couldn’t be done. One prison, twelve weeks, five [...]
Continuing collaboration during the Covid-19 crisis
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 […]
How the current Covid-19 crisis is impacting arts in criminal justice
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 […]
Releasing your mind from prison
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 […]
Why we need more black artists working in prisons
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 […]