The "Rehabilitation Prison": An oxymoron or an opportunity to radically reform imprisonment?

监狱正面临许多问题：人数不断增加，需要特殊照顾的“新”人口(如老年人、退伍军人)；老化和破旧的房屋在空间上加剧了过度拥挤的影响；专注于安全而忽视了其他目标；新的和危险的毒品和非法电话的涌入；以及前所未有的在押死亡人数。为应对这些危机，政府正在实施一项雄心勃勃的现代化方案(这是60年来的首次)，其核心是建造多达9座新监狱，并增加10 000个监狱宿位。这些计划代表着一次千载难逢的机会，不仅可以建造现代化的适合用途的设施，而且可以重新评估监狱的用途和它们可以实现的目标。在当今时代，惩罚和改过自新是政策的矛盾的孪生驱动因素，制定和实施都是在“有效性”和“效率”的背景下进行的，部长们认为，这两个目标最好由大型监狱提供的规模经济来实现。因此，尽管大量学者发现较小的设施更有利于安全地收容囚犯，提供有意义的工作、教育和培训，鼓励有目的的活动，并促进囚犯与工作人员之间的健康关系，但政府仍致力于建设1000多个床位的“巨型监狱”。与此同时，囚犯在服刑结束后往往没有做好释放的准备，重返社会可能是一件受欢迎的但最终是灾难性的事件。阻碍成功重新安置的因素包括：暴露在过度拥挤、野蛮和/或不卫生的拘留环境中造成的长期健康问题；由于监狱位置偏远和探视安排不当而导致的家庭关系破裂；未解决的暴力和物质滥用问题；由于教育程度低和获得犯罪记录而造成的就业前景有限；以及对于长期服刑的囚犯来说，缺乏现代社会运作所需的基本和必要技术的经验。在这种背景下，康复似乎是一个令人绝望的雄心，因此2017年HMP Berwyn的开业是一个重要的里程碑(BBC，2017年2月28日)--被媒体描述为英国超级监狱的典范。它可容纳2106名囚犯，(与英格兰的奥克伍德一起)是欧洲第二大监狱，也是英格兰和威尔士最大的公共监狱。它也是运营成本最低的，预计每名囚犯每年的成本仅为14,000 GB，而全国平均成本为32,500 GB。然而，Berwyn也是英格兰和威尔士第一个被指定为“康复监狱”的看守所，从一开始就嵌入了一种“康复文化”。如果这项任务成功，Berwyn将成为将于2021年建造的下一阶段监狱的旗舰模型。该研究由莱斯特大学和肯特大学以及HMP Berwyn的一个团队领导，将实证调查Berwyn能够在多大程度上实现其复兴承诺，并将利用其发现为当前和未来关于如何设计和运营监狱的辩论提供信息。根据申请人现有的ESRC资助的研究，并利用在这些项目期间建立的关键利益攸关方关系和网络，目的是在两个重要方面进行创新：i)研究结果将为现在和未来的知识和辩论提供信息--影响不会在研究结束时出现，但将从一开始就嵌入；ii)它将超越传统的“自上而下”的研究方法，并将充分让囚犯和工作人员作为数据的共同生产者。拟议中的项目挑战了传统智慧和被视为理所当然的假设，富有想象力，意义重大，而且及时。

Prisons are experiencing numerous problems: rising numbers, 'new' populations requiring specialised care (e.g. elderly men, military veterans); an ageing and dilapidated estate that spatially exacerbates effects of overcrowding; a preoccupation with security at the expense of other goals; an influx of new and dangerous drugs and illegal phones; and unprecedented numbers of deaths in custody. In response to these crises, the Government is undertaking an ambitious modernisation programme (the first for 60 years), at the core of which is up to nine new prison builds and the provision of an extra 10,000 prison places. These plans represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity, not only to build modern fit-for-purpose facilities but to reassess what prisons are for and what they can aspire to achieve. In the current era, punishment and rehabilitation are the paradoxical twin drivers of policy, made and implemented within a context of 'effectiveness' and 'efficiency' which, ministers argue, are goals best served by the economies of scale offered by very large prisons. Consequently, despite a wealth of scholarship finding smaller facilities to be better at housing prisoners safely, providing meaningful work, education and training, encouraging purposeful activity, and fostering healthy relationships between prisoners and staff, the Government remains committed to constructing 1000+ bed 'mega-prisons'. Meanwhile, prisoners are often ill-prepared for release at the end of their sentence, and a return to society can be experienced as a welcome but ultimately catastrophic event. Factors inhibiting successful resettlement include: long-term health problems caused by exposure to overcrowded, brutalising and/or insanitary custodial environments; broken family ties due to remote location of prisons and poor visiting arrangements; unresolved violence and substance misuse issues; limited job prospects due to poor educational attainment and the acquisition of a criminal record; and, for long-term prisoners, lack of experience with the basic, essential technologies that are required to function in modern society. In this context, rehabilitation can seem a forlorn ambition, so the opening of HMP Berwyn in 2017 - described by media as the 'poster child of Britain's super prisons' (BBC, 28 Feb 2017) - is a significant milestone. With capacity for 2,106 inmates, it is (along with Oakwood in England) the second largest prison in Europe, and the largest publicly-run prison in England and Wales. It is also the cheapest to operate, with anticipated costs of just £14,000 per prisoner per year, compared to the national average of £32,500. Yet Berwyn is also the first custodial facility in England and Wales to be designated a 'Rehabilitation Prison' and embed a 'rehabilitative culture' from the outset. If successful in this mission, Berwyn will be a 'flagship' model for the next phase of prisons to be constructed by 2021.Conducted by a team based at the Universities of Leicester and Kent, and at HMP Berwyn, the study will empirically investigate the extent to which Berwyn can deliver on its promise of rehabilitation, and will employ its findings to inform current and future debates about how prisons might be designed and operated. Following the applicants' existing ESRC-funded research and using the key stakeholder relationships and networks established during those projects, the intent is to innovate in two important ways: i) the research findings will inform knowledge and debates now as well as in future - impact will not come at the end of the study, but will be embedded from the start; ii) it will move beyond traditional 'top-down' research methods, and will fully involve prisoners and staff as co-producers of data. Challenging conventional wisdom and taken-for-granted assumptions, the proposed project is imaginative, significant and timely.