Abstract
Research evidence in the 21st century strongly indicates that prisons are inherently harmful environments in which to try to support rehabilitation, because of their destructive impact on identity, self-actualisation, mental health and social relationships. Yet HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) continues to propose that prisons can be legitimate sites of rehabilitation as well as centres of punishment. This article begins by interrogating this proposition by looking at research conducted in an adult male prison. By specifically focusing on the interpersonal conflicts and tensions that the men experience in their daily lives, the research highlights the ‘relational’ and ‘self-actualising’ harms that undermine the development of a successful rehabilitative culture within a prison. The article then moves on to consider a utopian vision of a ‘desistance-supporting’ rehabilitative ‘good society’ by drawing on a second piece of research that captures the voices and experiences of participants in a very successful community-based resettlement project. Lessons learned from this are then collated to consider how to build a rehabilitative ‘good society’ in prisons. The article concludes with a cautionary note about the possible difficulty of creating such a society in neoliberal times.
Keywords
Introduction
Research has repeatedly shown that prisons are inherently harmful environments to support rehabilitation because they shatter fragile identities, inhibit self-actualisation by nurturing feelings of powerlessness, damage mental health and disrupt relationships with family, friends and wider social networks. 1 Yet in the 21st-century consecutive governments have continued to propagate the belief that prisons can be sites of both rehabilitation and punishment. 2 This article makes use of two quite distinct research studies to interrogate this proposition.
The first part of the article draws upon data from research conducted in an adult male prison in the southwest of England. Specifically focusing on the interpersonal conflicts and tensions that the men experience in their daily lives, the research highlights the ‘relational’ and ‘self-actualising’ institutional harms of imprisonment which undermine attempts to develop a rehabilitative culture inside prisons. 3
The second part of the article makes use of evaluative research with men and women who have participated in what, from their viewpoint, is a highly successful community-based resettlement project. 4 Based on an analysis of interviews for this research and adopting Levitas’ ‘utopia as method’ 5 , we map out the core features of what they consider to be a ‘utopian vision of a desistance supporting’ 6 , rehabilitative ‘good society’ 7 .
The reason why we have utilised two different research studies to evidence our arguments is that while the first highlights the harms of imprisonment, the second allows us to compile lessons learned from a successful resettlement project. This in turn may enable the key elements of a culture more conducive to rehabilitation in prisons to be mapped out. The article concludes by speculating whether structural socio-political and economic constraints arising from neoliberal statecraft would ever allow a genuine ‘desistance-supporting’, rehabilitative ‘good society’ to exist either in the community or in prison.
Transforming Rehabilitation and the Research Context
Over the last decade and a half research and prison inspections have repeatedly argued that prisons in England and Wales are in a state of crisis with account after account of overcrowding, escalating levels of violence and self-harm, and concerns about safety, substance misuse, deteriorating physical conditions and poor-quality mental health provision. This has been compounded by an era of significant cuts in prison budgets and staffing levels.
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Despite such pronouncements and warnings, successive governments have continued to propagate the notion that prisons can be sites of rehabilitation, not just punishment, and have accordingly set in place policies to realise this ambition.
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In 2013 the Conservative / Liberal Democratic coalition government introduced the ‘transforming rehabilitation’ agenda as yet another attempt to strengthen the delivery of rehabilitation services,
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and in 2017 created HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) with its core mission: …to drive the biggest reform of the prison system in a generation. Across the UK we’re committed to improving how we rehabilitate offenders and protect the public.
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Between 2017 and 2019, as part of the ‘transforming rehabilitation’ agenda, we were invited by the Governor of a medium security adult male prison in the southwest of England to research how the rehabilitation culture in the prison could be strengthened. At the time the research was conducted there were 633 prisoners accommodated in the prison. We were initially asked to focus on how a new restorative programme (which sought to resolve conflict through dialogue and non-violent communication) being introduced into the prison was impacting the rehabilitative climate. 12 As the research progressed and with the permission of the Governor, we decided to broaden our remit beyond a simple evaluation of the impact of one restorative programme to explore the wider rehabilitative culture inside the prison.
The research design adopted a qualitative exploratory framework with the bulk of the data collected from 19 focus group interviews with prisoners. Each focus group ran for about 2–3 hours and had an average of 5 participants. Initially, we met with already formed groups, for example, prisoner council members, and later we used prisoners as gatekeepers to create new focus groups representative of different wings of the prison. We also engaged in participant observation by taking part in various activities and services in the prison, for example, restorative and substance misuse programmes, which provided opportunities for more informal contact and conversations. Individual and focus group interviews covered the following topics: day to day prison life; interpersonal conflicts and tensions and formal and informal ways in which these were dealt with; the purpose of imprisonment; and what makes a good rehabilitative environment. All the focus group and individual interviews were transcribed verbatim, and the data were entered into NVivo – a qualitative data analysis software package. This data was coded and thematically analysed drawing on a framework that was informed by the research literature and themes that emerged from the data and fieldwork. Three researchers coded the data, identified the themes and reflectively engaged in the thematic analysis of the data to ensure reliability. 13 Each of the themes identified were present within and across several interviews and evidenced in the text through direct quotes from respondents.
Social Harm and Imprisonment
Drawing on the above research data, this article now adopts a zemiological or social harm perspective to interrogate the proposition that imprisonment can be a site of rehabilitation by exploring prisoners’ experiences of social harm through an analysis of the type of interpersonal conflicts and tensions that they encountered in their daily lives in prison. Defining social harm is a hotly debated issue amongst social harm scholars, but it is generally agreed that Pemberton provides one of the most authoritative accounts. He defines social harm as:
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…the relations, processes, flows, practices, discourse, actions and inactions that constitute the fabric of our societies which serve to compromise the fulfilment of human needs and in doing so result in identifiable harms.
Pemberton argues that there are three fundamental human needs, that is ‘physical and mental health’, ‘autonomy’ and ‘relational’. 15 Social harm arises when these needs are not satisfied. By ‘physical and mental health’ harms he is referring to violence, psychological trauma and self-harm. ‘Autonomy’ harms relate to impediments to the achievement of self-actualisation because of an inability to make choices and the capacity to act upon them. ‘Relational’ harms result from enforced exclusion from meaningful social relations and social networks. They also encompass the harms of ‘misrecognition’ or the destruction of self-esteem and self-worth. Pemberton is particularly interested in how socio-political and economic factors compromise the realisation of human needs, undermine human flourishing and so generate social harm.
The high levels of ‘physical and mental health’ harms of imprisonment are well documented by research from the Inspectorate of Prisons and the Prison Reform Trust. 16 Therefore, the core aims of our research concentrated on exploring the ‘self-actualising’ and ‘relational’ harms of imprisonment which damage attempts at rehabilitation. We now intend to interrogate how these harms undermine the rehabilitation process through the eyes of the respondents in our research. We quote extensively from the prisoners’ voices as these vividly articulate and enrich the themes that emerged from the research data.
While the research was being conducted, the prison service was facing several challenges with research and prison inspections offering repeated accounts of ever-increasing levels of imprisonment, mounting levels of violence and self-harm and alarm about the availability of psychosocial substances such as Spice, worsening physical conditions and mediocre resettlement provision. All the above were compounded by substantial cuts to prison budgets and staffing levels. Like all prisons nationally, the prison in this research was experiencing similar challenges and this appears in the voices of respondents. 17
Legitimacy and the ‘Relational’ Harms of Imprisonment
Research shows that the extent to which prisoners consider a regime to be ‘legitimate’ is a crucial factor in building a constructive harm-free rehabilitation environment. 18 Liebling's research on the ‘moral performance’ of prisons offers powerful insights into what makes a ‘legitimate’ culture devoid of the ‘relational’ harms of imprisonment in the eyes of prisoners. 19 For Liebling the ‘moral performance’ of the prison refers to the social and emotional climate and quality of life and culture inside the prison. Two factors are important in this respect; first, relations between staff and prisoners, 20 and second, the style of the regime, particularly the way authority is exercised. 21 The thematic analysis of our focus group data revealed themes that resonated with the literature on ‘legitimacy’ and ‘moral performance’ to highlight the ‘relational’ harms of imprisonment.
We will now explore how the prisoners in our research rated the ‘moral performance’ of their prison. The analysis is based on what prisoners told us about the types of interpersonal tensions and conflicts that they encountered in their daily lives and how these were formally and informally dealt with by prisoners and prison staff. The prisoners raised a wide range of tensions and conflicts. Many of these arose from a large group of men living together in proximity in a confined space. We will only focus on the most raised concerns as they act as important indicators of the extent to which prisoners viewed the environment inside the prison as being conducive to rehabilitation.
Respectful Treatment and Professionalism
Not surprisingly the relationship with prison officers was seen to be a fundamental component of life for the prisoners in our research. The ideal qualities of a prison officer included someone who treated them with respect and honesty; was kind and caring; acted justly and fairly; and was open-minded and trustworthy. Below one prisoner talks about the kind of qualities he appreciated in prison officers:
Dynamic Authority and the Ideal Prison Regime
Beyond staff-prisoner relations, the way the prison regime was delivered was another important element in how prisoners judged the ‘moral performance’ of the prison. Crewe, Liebling and Hulley
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argue that the ideal regime is one where the prison officers exercise ‘dynamic authority’ by being ‘present’ and ‘interactive’ on the wings and ‘fair’ and ‘judicious’ in their use of authority. Prisoners in our research did comment about several prison staff who displayed what could be described as ‘dynamic authority’ and this behaviour was highly commended as can be seen from the comment below:
The ‘Self-Actualising’ Harms of Imprisonment
The ‘self-actualising’ harms of imprisonment that undermine the rehabilitation process are best understood through research on what Sykes
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defined as the ‘pains of imprisonment’ or what prisoners perceive to be the psychological and social pressures of prison life. Crewe
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argues that in recent years penal policy and practice have ‘softened’ as: …psychological power has superseded coercion as the primary basis for control and compliance. Accordingly, many of the conventional pains of imprisonment – those shaped by austere and authoritarian regimes – have become less onerous and less conspicuous.
The Weight of Imprisonment
Crewe
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describes the ‘weight’ of imprisonment as ‘the almost palpable burden of certain kinds of prison regimes’. This links to the earlier discussion of the ‘moral performance of prisons’, and the effects of the way prison officers exercise their authority, but in our research, one of the main tensions raised by the men in this area arose from the fallout from Spice attacks (when a prisoner overdosed on Spice). Such incidents were viewed as troublesome and disruptive because they led to lockdowns or ‘red regimes’ as prison officers were diverted to deal with them. The limited empathy towards prisoners ‘messing about with Spice’ can be seen in the following comment:
The Depth of Imprisonment
Crewe describes the ‘depth of imprisonment’ as ‘the degree to which the prison is psychologically onerous and oppressive’.
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‘Depth’ also relates to a ‘sense of being buried way beneath the surface of freedom’ and the actual and metaphysical distance between the prison and the outside world.
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Three key themes emerged from our focus groups relating to the ‘depth’ of imprisonment or the psychological pressures of prison life, that is, ‘being banged up’, ‘being kept in the dark’ and ‘deteriorating mental wellbeing’. Many prisoners commented that the amount of time spent ‘banged up’ increased during the time of our research because of staff shortages and Spice incidents. ‘Being banged up’ for long periods of time led to a mixed assortment of reactions. Some felt that it led to conflicts, aggression and agitation, while others talked about the lack of control, loneliness and boredom. Many turned to drugs to try to get some relief:
The Tightness of Imprisonment
The ‘tightness’ or ‘grip’ of imprisonment in Crewe's analysis conveys the concept of how prisoners are managed psychologically through ‘soft power’ or indirectly through the regulation of their attitudes and behaviour.
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Prisoners in the focus groups for this research spent some time talking about the ‘grip’ or ‘tightness’ of imprisonment as reflected in their experiences of the Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme which sought to mobilise them to take responsibility for their own self-governance and rehabilitation. They found the rules by which the scheme operated to be ambiguous and the administration by prison officers to be inconsistent. Most felt that instead of offering rewards for responsible behaviour, the scheme was mainly used as a form of punishment.
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In general, such schemes were seen to be psychologically onerous and anxiety provoking:
The Breadth of Imprisonment
The ‘breadth’ of imprisonment refers to the extent to which prisoners were able to maintain contact with the outside world or ‘the reach and impact of penal sanctions beyond the prison’.
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The concept of ‘breadth’ also encapsulates the prisoners’ sense of ostracisation from family and friends and feelings about public labelling and exclusion because of their offence. Many prisoners argued that the frequent ‘red regimes’ at the time of the research had severely curtailed their ability to keep in contact with their families because they were often unable to make phone calls when confined to their cells. But being in contact with the outside world could also have drawbacks that intensified the ‘pains of imprisonment’, such as getting bad news and being unable to cope with the resulting emotional strain. Below a prisoner shares the effects of being cut off from his family:
The Impossibility of Prison as a Site of Rehabilitation
Before our prison research was completed two significant events took place. First, in 2018/2019 following severe criticism, the ‘transforming rehabilitation’ agenda was dismantled and replaced by the new Offender Management in Custody (OMiC) model which gave prisons even more responsibility to engage with rehabilitation and resettlement. 38 Second, in early 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic struck in the UK and research by Suhomlinova and associates suggests that the severe regime restrictions set in place to stop the spread of the virus exacerbated the ‘relational’ and ‘self-actualising’ harms of imprisonment found in our prison research, particularly as regards prisoners’ mental health, wellbeing and resettlement. 39
With the aftermath of the pandemic now subsiding, the new OMiC model is proving to be just as unsuccessful as its ‘transforming rehabilitation’ predecessor with two recent reports published in 2023 by the National Audit Office and HM Inspectorate of Probation subjecting it to scathing criticisms.
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According to Cracknell a ‘common thread’ of issues, as quoted below, explain the failure of both ‘transforming rehabilitation’ and OMiC as models of effective rehabilitation practice: Inadequate resourcing of resettlement services; insufficient staffing and time to work effectively with individuals; the pace and scale of policy changes; a lack of a cohesive working culture between prison and probation staff; and finally, a culture in prisons that does not prioritise rehabilitation and resettlement support.
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In many respects the above critiques by Suhomlinova, the National Audit Office, HM Inspectorate of Probation and Cracknell simply endorse the key findings from our prison research. Most of the prisoners that we spoke to found imprisonment to be a ‘dehumanising’ experience that challenged the very essence of their self-identity, damaged their mental health, sustained feelings of powerlessness and destroyed social ties with family, friends and the wider community. When we set out on this research our aim was to explore how the rehabilitation culture in the prison under study could be strengthened. After our conversations with prisoners and reinforced by the collapse of the ‘transforming rehabilitation’ and OMiC initiatives, we concluded that the ‘self-actualising’ and ‘relational’ harms of imprisonment were so deep-rooted that they severely undermined the possibilities for prisons to be sites of rehabilitation. In the end, we concurred with Pat Carlen that rehabilitation through imprisonment was something of an ‘imaginary penality’
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or, as Crewe and Liebling argue, ‘wholly aspirational’ in the current precarious penal landscape.
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One respondent in our research summed up prisoners’ views on the lack of sincerity in prisons to support rehabilitation as follows:
The Zemiological Critique
The first part of this article evidenced how the harms of imprisonment are so great that they undermine any attempt at rehabilitation. Penal abolitionists like Drake and Scott argue that ‘prisons are coercive environments in which genuine treatment, rehabilitation and care cannot be provided because these goals are incompatible with the delivery of punishment’. 44 Instead, what is needed according to Scott is an ‘abolitionist real utopia’ perspective which envisions constructive, radical alternatives to imprisonment that are not hopeless, blue-sky dreams but pragmatic and realistic replacements. 45 One such ‘abolitionist real utopia’ advocated by Scott and Gosling is the therapeutic community, which they contend offers a genuine alternative to imprisonment for many individuals who end up in the criminal justice system and who are ‘socially disadvantaged’ and ‘have experienced multiple forms of exclusion’. 46
However, critics argue that the danger of abolitionism is that the replacement of imprisonment with measures such as community justice, restorative justice and therapeutic communities simply end up as adjuncts or add-ons which reify and legitimate the existing criminal and penal systems. 47 Critics further contend that the problem arises because abolitionists use crime and criminal justice as their starting points when considering alternatives. A transformative vision of alternatives necessitates a different conceptualisation of the issues or what Henry and Milovanovic describe as a ‘replacement discourse’. 48 Informed by a zemiological position, Copson argues that a social harm perspective offers such a discourse as it adopts a holistic account of social reform which supports the imaginary constitution of the ‘good society’ through the analysis of social harm. 49
Towards a Utopian Vision of Desistance and Rehabilitation
Drawing on Copson's arguments and in considering a utopian vision of rehabilitation beyond the harms of imprisonment, what is needed is a more radical, holistic re-imagining of a society that supports rehabilitation inspired by a social harm perspective. 50 Like Scott's ‘abolitionist real utopia’ 51 , Copson's conceptualisation of utopia refutes the notion that utopian thinking seeks to espouse an idealistic or absolute blueprint for the ‘good society’, but instead infers ‘a process of opening up possibilities for … imagining society in a different way…that transcends and overturns existing ways of organising the social world, based on the lived reality of the present’. 52
Desistance theorists and researchers provide a treasure trove of ideas of what constitutes the key ingredients of the ‘good society’ to support desistance and rehabilitation. Desistance is the term used by criminologists to describe and explain the challenges that offenders face and the processes that they navigate as they make the decision to cease offending. 53 Research suggests that desistance is a complex interactional process with some studies emphasising the ‘subjective’ or ‘internal’ aspects of the process and others the ‘objective’ or ‘social’ factors. While ‘subjective’ dimensions 54 refer to psychological or individual changes in offenders’ developmental maturity, cognitive and reasoning skills and self-esteem, ‘objective’ factors 55 include changes to offenders’ social situation and social support networks.
Research by Patton and Farrall provides a fascinating insight into a ‘utopian vision of a desistance-supporting society’. 56 They make use of a thematic analysis of the diary entries of forty-three male prisoners in a category C adult prison to explore the men's hopes and constraints for a desistance friendly society. The men completed the diaries as part of a restorative justice programme that they were participating in.
At the micro (individual) level the men wrote about their hopes for creating a non-offending identity. The constraints revolved around strained family dynamics and estranged relationships. At the meso level the men hoped for involvement and success in family, employment, education and housing contexts. Fears of failure in their desistance journeys centred on the stigma and rejection that they anticipated because they had a criminal conviction, and how this might lead to exclusion from labour markets and wider social networks. The men saw meso-brokers such as probation officers as being crucial in supporting them to build positive social networks and to enhance their standing in the community.
At the macro (structural) level wider social, economic and political forces were viewed by the men as significant constraints in supporting their journeys towards desistance. Here the men are referring to changes in the UK economy and labour market which might restrict employment opportunities as unskilled jobs have disappeared and the skills and qualifications required for other jobs have become beyond their reach. Criminal justice policies were also seen to have the potential to impose severe limitations on their desistance journeys in the current risk averse and punitive climate whereby, for example, licence conditions become overly restrictive and make would-be desisters anxious about being able to lead a ‘conventional and conforming life’ with family, at work and in the community. 57
LandWorks: Realising the ‘Good Society’
We will now turn our focus on the second research study that informs this article. For the past two years we have been involved in the evaluation of a resettlement agency called LandWorks. 58 LandWorks was established in 2013 and became an independent registered charity in 2016. It aims to work with people either on licence following release from local prisons or serving community sentences to support their rehabilitation and resettlement back into the community. The project provides a holistic service based on a ‘theory of change’ model which combines real work experience with comprehensive resettlement support in a safe, non-judgemental environment where trainees (the name given to participants in the project) can gain the social and employability skills that will enable them to develop a crime free identity and to reconstruct their lives. 59 Since the project started in 2013 and up to March 2024, LandWorks has provided 230 trainee placements and has an exemplary record of reducing reoffending. Currently, the rate of reoffending within one year of trainees finishing their placement is less than 5.5%. 60
The LandWorks’ programme uses the structure of a 'working day' to develop the social and job-related skills of trainees, to support change and find employment. 61 Most placements last for six to nine months and trainees attend the site from one to two days a week up to a full five-day working week, dependent on needs and circumstances. While on placement trainees participate in three enterprises - a market garden, a wood workshop and a pottery workshop, all selling produce to the local community. They are also involved in site maintenance and small building projects. Eating and cooking together at lunchtime using homegrown produce provide further opportunities for trainees to feel a sense of belonging and fine tune their social skills. 62 Alongside this core working day, LandWorks provides counselling and a range of practical resettlement support with finances, housing, seeking employment and general well-being.
After placements end LandWorks provides on-going support, tailored to the individual needs of its graduates (the name used to describe trainees who have finished their placement). This can range from checking-in and being a listening ear, to providing advice and signposting, accessing resettlement services and, at points of crisis, can even lead to return placements. Currently, LandWorks has 178 graduates of whom 69% have accessed support and guidance in the last year. The success of the LandWorks programme is evidenced by the employment rate for economically active graduates which in 2023 was 94%. 63
In the eyes of its trainees and graduates, LandWorks is considered a highly successful resettlement project. 64 Inspired by Patton and Farrall's research, we now intend to explore why the LandWorks project is considered to offer a utopian vision of a desistance-supporting ‘good society’ from the point of view of the men and women who have participated in it. 65 LandWorks relies on the voice and lived experience of its trainees and graduates to develop and adapt its programme and measure outcomes. The PeN (Photographic Electronic Narrative) interviews are essential to this process as they give respondents the opportunity to share the highs and lows of their resettlement journeys and reflect on how well LandWorks has responded. 66
The PeN (Photographic Electronic Narrative) project was established at LandWorks in 2016 with funding from the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF). The aim of the project is to give trainees and graduates the opportunity to share their journeys with supporters and the wider community. 67 This is achieved through an anonymous, yet accessible format of blog posts co-created from individual interviews conducted on site with trainees and graduates. These interviews are transcribed, and sections are taken from them to form a blog post. The blog posts are then shared alongside photographs, following explicit agreement from the trainees. 68 Trainees also give permission for the full interview transcripts (from 60–120 minutes in length) to be used for evaluation, research and publication purposes.
Like Patton and Farrall we now intend to conduct a thematic analysis of the PeN interviews over the last two years to tease out and render explicit the vision of the ‘good society’ for desistance and rehabilitation proposed by trainees and graduates from LandWorks. 69 Levitas’ ‘utopia as method’ provides a conceptual framework to reflect on the social world critically and holistically as it is and debate the possibilities for realising the ‘good society’ which will support desistance and rehabilitation. 70 Levitas calls this process the ‘imaginary reconstitution of society’. 71 There are three aspects to the utopian method which provide the analytic tools for envisioning the imaginary constitution of a desistance-supporting society. First, ‘archaeology’ refers to the normative assumptions, premises and values implicit in the ‘good society’. The second aspect, ‘architecture’, refers to the concrete institutional design and ways of organising the ‘good society’. The third aspect of the utopian method is ‘ontology’ which explores the idea of human subjectivity and the type of people who will flourish and self-actualise in the ‘good society’. The three aspects together are interrelated to create a holistic implicit account of the ‘good society’.
Archaeological Assumptions: A Safe Haven
So, what do trainees and graduates tell us are the key archaeological principles that guide the LandWorks project and so underly a utopian vision of desistance in the ‘good society’? Levitas defines the archaeological mode as ‘…piecing together the images of the good society that are embedded in political programmes and social and economic policies’.
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This involves excavating the normative underpinnings of the ‘good society’ implicit within policies and programmes. The archaeological assumptions that inform the vision of trainees and graduates at LandWorks of a desistance-supporting ‘good society’ lie in its person-centred relationships and culture. Many of the trainees and graduates have experienced chaotic lifestyles and faced traumatic life events that left them with deep emotional scars. LandWorks was viewed as a ‘safe haven’ that brought peace and calm into their lives.
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Below Eric provides a taste of how traumatic life could be: I’ve been through quite a bit in my life…, a lot of crap… My dad, he was murdered… I’ve spoken about it a lot and I find it helps. I’m dealing with the situation head on when I talk about it. … So yeah, my dad was murdered when I was 15. The two people that done it, they got off with manslaughter, which was more frustrating… My dad was in prison at the time. So, my mum, while he was in prison, got off with someone else, my stepdad. They got married. My mum still loved my dad deep down, he died, she couldn't take it, so she committed suicide. She had a hernia operation, allergic reaction to that, had to pump the poison out of her stomach, taking a lot of pharmaceutical drugs, drinking a bottle of vodka a day… She got told if you don't stop drinking, you’re going to die. She wanted to die so she carried on drinking. So, she committed suicide. That was when I was 16. So, me and my siblings, we entered the care system. Yeah, the brilliant care system. Everybody here, all the guys, they all treat you with respect and they speak to you nicely. They speak to you and make you feel wanted. They make you feel like you can improve yourself and do something with your life, whereas normal community service doesn't… They treat you more like an adult and not like an animal. They treat you like a human-being. Yeah, you’ve done wrong, but they don't carry on the punishment. … you get spoken to like an adult here and not like a toddler that's thrown their beaker across the front room and stained the carpet… they don't dictate to you… you’re treated like a human-being, you’re treated like someone that's worthy of something. …despite what you might feel are your failings or faults, you have that feeling that you’ve been accepted and it's OK. That essentially is the most important part because most people in this situation would have quite a few years of feeling inadequate…So yeah, it's just going back to basics, feeling accepted. It's a place to build your confidence and a place to get some self-esteem, somewhere to rebuild yourself, somewhere where you can give yourself some kind of foundation to get some kind of life again. I’ve had three probation officers in one month, they keep changing them… so you go to probation, you meet a woman, you tell her your whole life story, you get comfortable with her, and you come in the next week and it's a different probation officer, then what. Do you know what I mean? I just got to the point where I said I’m not telling you what's going on in my life because next week it's gonna be someone else I’ve got to tell…
Architectural Drivers
Levitas describes the architectural mode as ‘imagining a reconstructed world and describing its social institutions’. 75 How is LandWorks designed to achieve the ideal community to support desistance? There are four main ways in which the LandWorks project is delivered that from the point of view of trainees and graduates distinguishes its architectural design for supporting desistance in the ‘good society’.
First is the It's routine, it's structure. It is a little place away. A little haven you could call it… The people and the activities, it's rewarding. I must say it's definitely helped me 110%. Yeah. I’m focussing on the gardening side of it…. I thought I could make my own stamp, if that makes sense, get a sense of pride and achievement from what I’m doing, and I can do that in there…you’re not getting paid, well you are, but not in the sense of currency as in money, you’re getting paid with self-achievement, self-esteem, self-satisfaction, confidence. That is your reward from this place. Yeah. It's the support everyone gives you… I think that's a big part of it. It's like come on, let's all go and do this, let's go and do that. It's not like a slave labour camp because everyone supports you, I think…In the workshop you work together making a bench or feed the chickens. It's not a single task. It's teamwork. I like that. You don't want to be in a room by yourself … you want to be together, don't you? That's a big part of it … you’re altogether. It's very social. It's not anti-social. I like that. I’ve had too much anti-social in my life, so it's quite nice to be around people…Probably a very good thing about this place, very supportive. Well, it's the biggest thing I would say.
Third, LandWorks deliberately avoids having too formal a hierarchy and structure. Far more, it gives trainees and graduates the
…the PeN project gives people… a solid insight to what is actually going on… it helps break that stigma of what criminals and ex-cons or whatever the hell you want to call it is all about… you get nice comments, you get really good feedback. I reckon it's because of this format. If you just went, I’ve had a problem, you tell someone that you’ve been in prison, they look at you like all petrified and scared and think you’re a scumbag, but the people that read the PeN Project they don't think that way of you, so you’ve broken that stigma, you’ve given it a nice U-turn.
… if you need a hand with anything, you can ask…there's always someone that can help with anything… Like look, they’ve helped me do my ID. Like I wouldn't even know where to begin if I’ve only got that form… I bet some people coming out of prison wouldn't even know where to begin with some of that…Like I say, someone taking five minutes to do something small, but can have a great impact on someone's life. Like me getting that ID, it took YYY five minutes to fill that thing out, it didn't take long for you to sign it, dah-de-dah, but that's going to make a big difference for me, I can go and open a bank…I tried to do the provisional thing, but I filled out something wrong, this and that, and then I got it sent to my old address because I’d moved and oh yeah, so I never received one and then … oh, it's just aggro. It winds me up big time. I hate paperwork.
Ontological Characteristics
In ontological mode the utopian method addresses the issue ‘…of what kind of people particular societies develop and encourage…. what capabilities are valued, encouraged and genuinely enabled, or blocked and suppressed, by specific existing or potential arrangements’.
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The key question being posed here is what type of people thrive in the ‘good society’ and as a corollary what is it about the LandWorks community that supports its trainees and graduates to flourish and self-actualise? Desistance research makes clear that moving away from crime is not smooth and indeed full of snags and obstructions.
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In the PeN interviews trainees and graduates commended LandWorks for giving them the self-confidence, resilience, connectivity and practical support to pursue their journey despite the pitfalls encountered enroute. Here Joshua talks about his journey and how LandWorks supported him to flourish and self-actualise: Without LandWorks there are so many other avenues I could’ve gone down. It really kind of solidified my choices in what I wanted to do…I’m very cynical when it comes to people and peoples’ intentions. I think I lost a lot of trust a long time ago … early teens, I lost a lot of trust with people, and I’ve always struggled to kind of develop relationships and a confidence with people over the years. That's always been a struggle and that's caused a ripple effect on my lifestyle and my life…Yeah, I lost a lot of faith and a lot of confidence…This journey at the moment it's not just about my recovery and with abstinence, but it's also about my recovery into society to kind of find some faith and confidence in society and a confidence in myself, and that I’m able to do it to become a part of it. Yeah, I feel I have (come a long way). I’ve matured… I’ve just matured and wised up, I suppose. I’m a bit more focussed. I’m not so on edge. I’m totally different…LandWorks has been quite a rock for me really, something to focus on…I’ve been very, very low, the lowest of the low to be fair. I suppose my strong point is I don't give up. I’m quite resilient, which is good. Yeah, not giving up has got me where I am now… I think my heads so much clearer now. That's why I’ve probably bettered myself I suppose. I think I have kind of noticed it a bit because I’m back in the social groups like the gym and football. I sort of lost all that. I sort of went back in my shell a bit. It's nice to be open again. Here I can be. I don't have to hide anything.
Concluding Comments: Lessons Learnt, Structural Constraints and the Limits of the ‘Good Society’ in Neoliberal Times
Drawing on research conducted inside an adult male prison, the first part of this article explored the ‘relational’ and ‘self-actualising’ harms of imprisonment which undermine the development of a rehabilitative culture in prisons. While most desistance scholars would agree with the above research that prisons are ‘inherently problematic’ environments to support rehabilitation, some research studies show that certain aspects of imprisonment can be ‘turning points’ for offenders in their journey away from crime. 85 Such research can thus provide an insight into how to create a rehabilitative culture in prisons. This is because the ‘self-actualising’ and ‘relational’ harms described by Pemberton that deny human flourishing are not that dissimilar to the ‘individual’ and ‘social’ changes identified by desistance scholars that must take place to facilitate desistance. 86 So what lessons can be learned from the trainees and graduates at LandWorks about what constitutes a ‘desistance- supporting’ ‘good society’ that could be used to create a rehabilitative culture in prisons?
According to research, a positive rehabilitative culture emerges when prisoners assess a regime to be ‘legitimate’. 87 The quality of the relationship between prisoners and staff and the style of the regime, particularly the way authority is exercised, are crucial to the assessment. 88 In our research the ‘relational’ harms of imprisonment denied the legitimacy of the prison as a potential site of rehabilitation. Respondents were critical of the way they were treated by prison officers which they felt was often disrespectful and unprofessional. They were also unhappy about the way the regime was delivered. Many expressed disappointment in the unfair and inconsistent manner some staff exercised their authority and applied the rules, describing them as ‘power crazy’. This behaviour they felt fell short of the standards envisaged in the concept of ‘dynamic authority’. 89 By way of contrast, the archaeological assumptions that guided the person-centred approach at LandWorks was highly rated by its trainees and graduates. Here, relationships were based on trust, honesty and respect and embedded in a non-judgemental culture of acceptance. This they felt offered the perfect environment to support desistance. The lesson here is that prisons need to do more to adopt a person-centred approach if they are to become portals for rehabilitation.
The ’self-actualising’ harms of imprisonment were the second set of factors in our research that undermined the development of a culture conducive to rehabilitation in prisons. Our understanding of ‘self-actualising’ harm is greatly enhanced by Crewe's analysis of ‘depth’, ‘weight’, ‘tightness’ and ‘breadth’ to elaborate on the psycho-social pressures of imprisonment. 90 Here key themes centred on ‘being banged up’, ‘being kept in the dark’ and ‘feelings of powerlessness’, all of which severely damaged the mental health of prisoners. While we were conducting the research, several ‘red’ regimes were applied which meant that the whole prison was locked down and prisoners remained in their cells for up to twenty-three hour stretches. This usually related to staff shortages or substance misuse incidents on the wings, but prisoners were often not informed about what was going on and this led to much uncertainty and mental angst. Being cut off from contact with family, friends and the outside world was also an issue. The prisoners’ response to such pressures was simply to ‘trust no-one’ and focus on their own survival.
The LandWorks project is architecturally designed to facilitate ‘self-actualisation’. Trainees and graduates felt that they were listened to, and their opinions respected, which gave them a feeling of power and control over their time at LandWorks. Unlike the chaos that surrounded most of their lives, LandWorks offered an oasis of calm and stability where work was meaningful and structured to provide an impression of purpose and achievement. Resettlement support was practical, co-ordinated and tailored to individual needs. But it was perhaps the sense of belonging to a non-judgemental, accepting community that provided the foundation to their ontological hopes of sustaining a non-criminal identity. Prisons have much to learn from the self-actualising ethos at LandWorks in terms of creating a ‘good society’ conducive to supporting desistance and rehabilitation.
Currently, we continue to live in an era dominated by neoliberal statecraft, which Harvey describes as a ‘political project’ whose main goal is to maintain the wealth and power of economic elites rather than generating economic prosperity for the benefit of all. 91 In pursuit of this objective neoliberalism has instigated widespread austerity measures resulting in substantial cuts to public spending which have exposed the socially disadvantaged to heightened levels of social harm. 92 The bulk of these harms have arisen from the decimation of health, welfare and educational services and the weakening of employment security. Public sector agencies such as prisons and probation have experienced the full brunt of austerity through drastic cuts to their rehabilitation and resettlement budgets.
Desistance theory and research, particularly in the way they have been interpreted by policymakers, have been heavily criticised for decontextualising the desistance process by over emphasising the significance of individual change and downplaying or neglecting the impact of socio-economic structural constraints. 93 Yet structural forces can impose severe restrictions on the individual's ability to transition away from crime. Employment is a case in point where, as Farrall, Bottoms and Shapland point out, ‘changes in the economy’ brought about by the neoliberal political project ‘have restructured the legitimate routes out of crime’ by reducing the available work for ‘would-be desisters’, many of whom may be unskilled with poor educational qualifications. 94 A situation made worse by having a criminal record.
To conclude, while the archaeological, architectural and ontological characteristics of LandWorks may provide the ‘good society’ for supporting desistance and effecting change at the micro and meso levels, particularly when staff act as meso-brokers to link trainees and graduates with potential social capital in the local community, as Patten and Farrall also acknowledge in their research, any changes made may be difficult to sustain unless supported by wider macro socio-political and economic transformation. 95 The same constraints apply in attempting to develop a rehabilitative culture in prisons.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research referred to in this article were funded by grants from the University of Plymouth, the Independent Social Research Foundation, and the Aurum Charitable Trust.