Prisoner Publishing: Supporting Rehabilitation and Reform through Innovative Writing Programmes

英国监狱陷入危机：超过一半的囚犯是半文盲，袭击事件创历史新高，重新定罪率保持在50%左右。资金严重不足的墨西哥监狱系统面临着更加紧迫的问题，如过度拥挤、暴力行为猖獗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被重新定罪的可能性是参加教育或培训的囚犯的三倍。囚犯出版项目的目的是在联合王国和墨西哥的监狱中采用cartonera方法制定基层写作和图书制作方案，这些方法是在拉丁美洲最具挑战性的环境中出现的以社区为基础的倡议，涉及用回收材料制作低成本书籍。该提案源于澳大利亚人权委员会两个项目的不可预见的发展，这两个项目得到了全球挑战研究基金的支持，不稳定的出版和激活艺术促进国际发展，这两个项目共同展示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层面社会和福利影响的潜力。特别是，它建立在“激活艺术”中制定的“Cartoneras促进和平”方案的基础上，当我们在瓜达拉哈拉的项目伙伴在墨西哥第二大监狱综合体的妇女区Puente Grande运行该项目时，该方案发生了意想不到的转变，成为监狱出版物。该方案在影响力和参与度方面超出了所有预期：参与者报告说，她们获得了显著的心理和社会效益;监狱管理人员支持妇女创建了自己的可持续出版集体-Bote Cartonero（监狱中的Cartonera）;哈利斯科C7电视台对该倡议进行了新闻报道。通过与一系列项目合作伙伴和合作组织以及我们在英国和墨西哥监狱的联系人（来自监狱长，福利团队和教育团队）的密切合作，我们将共同设计三个新的写作和出版计划，并在16所监狱中进行试点（6所在英国，10所在墨西哥）。我们将调整快速、低成本、手工出版的cartonera出版模式，以适应不同类型的监狱：女子监狱和男子监狱;混合类监狱和B类监狱（短期监禁）;表现不佳的监狱和表现良好的监狱。这将使我们能够开发创新，创造性和成本效益的方案，每个方案都将产生一本cartonera书。由于有一个针对监狱艺术工作者的西班牙文和英文版的综合囚犯出版包，这些方案将在项目之外推广。这些方案旨在长期、深远和可持续，预计将在项目寿命期内和之后对四个主要受益群体产生重大影响。我们的主要受益者是囚犯，特别是难以接触的囚犯。这些方案将通过集体写作和阅读活动提高监狱中的实用识字率，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，并丰富文化内涵，提高生活质量。第二，这些方案旨在改善监狱的体制文化，提高监狱作为改造场所的有效性。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神话，改变公众对监狱和囚犯的讨论。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让。

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.