Prisoner Publishing: Supporting Rehabilitation and Reform through Innovative Writing Programmes

英国监狱正处于危机之中：超过一半的囚犯是文盲，袭击事件创历史新高，再定罪率保持在50%左右。资金严重不足的墨西哥监狱系统面临着更为紧迫的问题，如过度拥挤、地方性暴力以及囚犯严重缺乏教育和康复机会。艺术和教育项目缺乏资金和支持，尽管这些项目的好处已得到充分证明：有证据表明，不参加教育或培训的囚犯再次被定罪的可能性是参加教育或培训的囚犯的三倍。囚犯出版项目的目标是在英国和墨西哥的监狱中使用cartonera方法开发基层写作和图书制作项目。cartonera方法是一种基于社区的项目，涉及用回收材料生产低成本的书籍，这种方法出现在最具挑战性的拉丁美洲环境中。该提案源于由全球挑战研究基金支持的两个AHRC项目“不稳定出版”和“激活艺术促进国际发展”的不可预见的发展，这两个项目共同证明了社区出版研讨会在面临高度不稳定、排斥、耻辱和暴力的社区中促进多维社会和福利影响的潜力。尤其值得一提的是，它建立在“激活艺术”（Activating the Arts）所发展的“Cartoneras for Peace”计划的基础上，当我们在瓜达拉哈拉的项目伙伴在墨西哥第二大监狱建筑群的女囚区普恩特格兰德（Puente Grande）开展项目时，该计划意外地转变为监狱出版。该项目在影响和参与度方面超出了所有人的预期：参与者报告了显著的心理和社会效益；监狱管理人员支持这些妇女创建她们自己的可持续出版集体，Bote Cartonero (Clink中的Cartonera)；该倡议得到了哈利斯科州C7电视台的新闻报道。通过与一系列项目合作伙伴和合作组织的密切合作，以及我们在英国和墨西哥监狱的联系人（来自监狱管理者、福利团队和教育团队），我们将共同设计三个新的写作和出版计划，在16所监狱进行试点（英国6所，墨西哥10所）。我们将把快速、低成本、手工出版的卡通出版模式适应不同类型的监狱：女子监狱和男子监狱；混合类和B类（短期停留）；表现不佳和表现良好的监狱。这将使我们能够开发创新的、有创意的和具有成本效益的方案，每个方案将产生一本卡通书。由于针对监狱艺术从业人员提供了西班牙语和英语的综合囚犯出版包，这些方案将在项目之外可复制。这些方案的设计是长期的、深远的和可持续的，预期将在项目的生命周期内和之后对四个主要的受益者群体产生重大影响。我们的主要受益者是被监禁的人，尤其是难以接触到的囚犯。这些方案将通过集体写作和阅读活动提高监狱的功能性识字率，提高参与者的自信心，帮助解决心理健康问题，提高自我效能和能动性，并提高文化的丰富性和生活质量。第二，这些方案的目的是改善监狱的体制文化，提高其作为改造场所的效力。第三，通过我们的公众和媒体参与活动，该项目将通过促进参与者的创造性和反思性工作，打击负面看法和污名化的神话，改变公众对监狱和囚犯的看法。最后，该项目将促进非政府组织、民间社会、政府和监狱当局之间新的创造性伙伴关系和知识转移。

UK prisons are in crisis: over half of prisoners are functionally illiterate, assaults are at a record high, and reconviction rates remain at around 50%. The severely under-funded Mexican prison system faces yet more urgent problems, such as overcrowding, endemic violence and a severe lack of educational and rehabilitative opportunities for prisoners. There is a lack of funding and support for arts and education projects, even though their benefits are well proven: evidence suggests that prisoners who do not take part in education or training are three times more likely to be re-convicted than those who do. The aim of the Prisoner Publishing project is to develop grassroots writing and book-making programmes in UK and Mexican prisons using cartonera methods - community-based initiatives involving the production of low-cost books from recycled materials - that have emerged from the most challenging Latin American environments. The proposal stems from unforeseen developments across two AHRC projects supported by Global Challenges Research Funding, Precarious Publishing and Activating the Arts for International Development, which together have demonstrated the potential of community publishing workshops to promote multidimensional social and welfare impact in communities facing high levels of precarity, exclusion, stigma and violence. In particular, it builds on the Cartoneras for Peace programme developed in Activating the Arts, which took an unforeseen turn into prison publishing when our project partners in Guadalajara ran the project in Puente Grande, the women's section of Mexico's second-largest prison complex. This programme surpassed all expectations in terms of impact and engagement: the participants reported significant psychological and social benefits; the prison administrators have supported the women to create their own sustainable publishing collective, Bote Cartonero (Cartonera in the Clink); and the initiative received news coverage from the TV station C7 Jalisco. Through close collaboration with a range of project partners and collaborating organisations and our contacts in UK and Mexican prisons (from Prison Governors, Wellbeing teams and Education teams), we will co-design three new writing and publishing programmes to be piloted across 16 prisons (6 in the UK, 10 in Mexico). We will adapt the cartonera publishing model of rapid, low-cost, artisanal publishing to different kinds of prison: women's and men's; mixed category and Category B (short-stay); under-performing and high-performing prisons. This will allow us to develop innovative, creative, and cost-effective programmes that will each produce a cartonera book. The programmes will be replicable beyond the project thanks to a comprehensive Prisoner Publishing Pack available in both Spanish and English, aimed at prison arts practitioners. Designed to be long-lasting, far-reaching, and sustainable, the programmes are expected to produce a significant impact for four principal groups of beneficiaries both within and beyond the life-span of project. Our primary beneficiaries are imprisoned people, especially hard-to-reach prisoners. The programmes will improve functional literacy rates in prisons through collective writing and reading activities, improve participant's self-confidence, help combat mental health problems, increase self-efficacy and agency, and enhance cultural enrichment and quality of life. Second, the programmes are designed to improve the institutional culture of prisons, enhancing their effectiveness as places of rehabilitation. Third, through our public and press engagement activities, the project will change public discourse on prisons and prisoners by promoting the creative and reflective work of participants and combating negative perceptions and stigmatising myths. Finally, the project will facilitate new creative partnerships and knowledge transfer between NGOs, civil society, government and prison authorities.