What is the NCJAA?

The National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance (NCJAA) exists to promote the specific role of arts and arts organisations working with people in the criminal justice system, as a springboard for positive change. It is a growing network of independent arts practitioners, arts specialist organisations, and other relevant parties interested in the arts in criminal justice. It is embedded in Clinks as one of its thematic networks and managed by staff employed by Clinks.

What is the role of the Advisory Group?

The Advisory Group provides strategic and operational advice to inform the work of the NCJAA. The group is compiled of those working in the arts in criminal justice, including those with lived experience of the criminal justice system. The group exists to ensure that the NCJAA can always be best informed by those it aims to serve.

What do the group members bring?

They bring intelligence, enthusiasm, knowledge, skills and expertise from different aspects of arts in criminal justice and different art forms, so that NCJAA can considered a wider and fuller range of arts specific evidence and views to inform its work.

How does the group operate?

The group meets once a quarter, with the group’s chair and the NCJAA Manager supporting the meetings and jointly setting the agenda. The group meets mostly online, but we aim for at least one in-person meeting per year.

In between meetings, group members receive communication, mostly by email, about a range of issues, including policy and practice news, opportunities for the sector and pieces of work and research that the NCJAA is undertaking. Members might, for example, be invited to comment on a resource that the NCJAA are developing, share views on the government’s commissioning model for services in prisons, contribute to the bi-monthly NCJAA newsletter or help plan an event. You will be providing invaluable knowledge and expertise from your experiences and the wider sector of arts in criminal justice, to shape the work of the NCJAA.

Would you like to be part of the group?

Would you like to promote arts in the criminal justice system, share a passion for the transformative power of the arts for people in the criminal justice system, and voice the need for the wider arts sector to be more inclusive, to everyone’s benefit?

We are now refreshing the membership of the Advisory Group and we are excited to be recruiting new members through an expression of interest process.

If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with the NCJAA Manager, Lou Clark at artsalliance@clinks.org