Inspiring Futures: Footprints

在刑事司法系统中，艺术对男子和妇女的变革潜力是外地工作人员所熟知的，然而，要全面和系统地捕捉参与艺术的多重影响，仍面临重大挑战。对于收入依赖于拨款和佣金的艺术组织来说，展示影响力的能力至关重要，尤其是在经济紧缩的时期。许多现有的影响研究都是对单个艺术学科中的个别项目进行小规模评估，后续行动时间很短。他们的调查结果往往指出了积极的短期影响，但对艺术在刑事司法中的长期集体和独特贡献知之甚少，例如，对监禁后的社会融合、对停止犯罪以及更广泛地对生活质量和艺术界的贡献。关于什么是艺术影响的有力证据，以及艺术实践和研究评估之间的关系，还有一些重要的问题。这些都是这个项目要解决的问题。剑桥大学和国家刑事司法艺术联盟(NCJAA)将与来自不同艺术学科的8个组织合作，这些组织涉及英国各地监狱和社区中不同群体的罪犯和释囚：鹅剧院、Clean Break、Good Vibrations、Only Connect、Synergy、艾琳·泰勒信托基金、Open Clasp、螺旋艺术和凯斯特勒信托基金。通过这一合作，该项目将在理论上了解表演艺术在刑事司法中的贡献，并制定一种技术创新和可持续的参与性评价研究方法。通过这些活动，它的目的是促进在刑事司法环境中扩大和嵌入艺术倡议，并实现艺术对刑事司法系统中的人的有益潜力。

The transformative potential of the arts for men and women in the criminal justice system is well-known to those working in the field yet there are significant challenges to capturing fully and systematically the multiple effects of arts participation. The ability to demonstrate impact is critical for arts organisations whose income is dependent on grants and commissions, particularly in a time of economic austerity. Many existing impact studies have been small-scale evaluations of individual projects in single arts disciplines with short follow-up timescales. Their findings frequently point to positive short-term effects but less is known about the collective and distinct contribution of the arts in criminal justice in the longer-term, for example, to social integration after imprisonment, to desistance from crime, and more broadly to quality of life and the artistic community. There are also important questions about what constitutes robust evidence of arts impact and about the relationship between arts practice and research evaluation. These are the issues that this project will address. The University of Cambridge and the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance (NCJAA) will work in partnership with 8 organisations from different arts disciplines which engage with different groups of offenders and ex-offenders in prison and in the community across the UK: Geese Theatre; Clean Break; Good Vibrations; Only Connect; Synergy; The Irene Taylor Trust; Open Clasp; Helix Arts, and the Koestler Trust. Through this collaboration, this project will develop a theoretically informed understanding of the contribution of the performing arts in criminal justice and a technically innovative and sustainable participatory evaluation research methodology. Through these activities it aims to facilitate the expansion and embedding of arts initiatives in criminal justice settings and realise the beneficial potential of the arts for people in the criminal justice system.