How our collaborative writing project helped prisoners connect with their families
Retrieved on:
Monday, July 3, 2023
Research shows that taking part in educational activities while serving a sentence can help people cope with prison life and reduce reoffending.
Key Points:
- Research shows that taking part in educational activities while serving a sentence can help people cope with prison life and reduce reoffending.
- However, numbers of people engaging in prison education are declining as it becomes increasingly undervalued and under-resourced.
- However, it is challenging to maintain family relationships because of the lack of meaningful contact between prisoners and their children.
- Our research explored the impact WWW had on both the prisoners and their families.
Writing from experience
- A key principle of WWW is that no one from outside the group is involved in developing the plot, writing or editing.
- While the writers were initially a little daunted at the prospect of writing a novel, they worked hard to produce something their children would enjoy – the result was an exciting fantasy adventure of around 8,000 words.
Messages of hope
- It had two main themes: “people not being bad” and “people changing for the better”.
- Rather, they experience difficult circumstances which lead to challenging emotions, and these in turn lead to bad behaviours.
- For example, one character, who is a bear, is in prison at the start of the book but wants to change his life.
- The writers said they would not have engaged with WWW if it had not been linked to their families.
- This will have positive results not just for those in prison, but for their families as well.