Breaking the Cycle? Prison Visitation and Recidivism in the UK.

在2011年英国骚乱之后，司法大臣肯尼斯·克拉克（Kenneth Clarke）将暴乱者描述为“野蛮的下层阶级，与主流社会隔绝”，并将骚乱归咎于“破碎的刑罚体系——其防止再次犯罪的记录简直糟糕透顶”。再犯或累犯是监禁、再入监狱、再犯和再监禁这一循环的关键，是一项重大的政策挑战。在英国，75%的刑满释放人员在释放后的9年内再次犯罪，39.3%的刑满释放人员在释放后的前12个月内再次犯罪。克拉克在政府的“打破循环”绿皮书中提出的解决方案是“按结果付费”；一项“激进和分散的改革”，“自由创新”新的干预措施，“向来自私人、自愿和社区部门的新提供者开放市场”。该项目提请注意监狱探视作为监禁的一个方面，已经证明探视可以改善获释囚犯的结果，但目前对探视的具体功能了解甚少。本项目通过平行方法，探讨探视与再犯之间的关系。这个跨学科的项目提供了一个新的视角，监狱探视和它的关系，高度热门的问题在英国累犯。宏观层面的统计分析与对探视设施的创新混合方法研究相结合，将确定这种关系的性质及其社会空间背景，为探视政策和探视空间的设计提供信息，并促进有关囚犯康复和重新安置的更广泛辩论。对累犯的研究发现，监狱探视是改善释放后结果的重要因素；探视囚犯的结果通常要积极得多，并且在研究人群和时间段中都证明了较低的再犯率。然而，尽管这种效应被广泛观察到，但其因果关系却鲜为人知。据推测，个人关系的维持以及与家庭和社区的“联系”感可能会通过探视产生，并在释放后顺利融入社会，但这一过程从未得到充分探索。持续的犯罪生涯背后的过程仍然是一个研究空白，很少有人知道心理变化与监狱访问有关的心理构念可能调解访问和累犯之间的关系。为了分析英国探视与累犯之间的关系，该项目使用了来自司法部和警察国家计算机的国家级统计数据，并与司法部分析服务部一起进行了分析，还探索了西米德兰兹郡监狱“实地”探视的经验，调查了囚犯、探视者和监狱工作人员经历监狱探视的方式；特别是探视的心理影响，以及空间环境如何影响囚犯和探视者之间的接触。该项目将独特地对监狱探视与累犯之间的关系产生最细微的见解，并对监狱探视的社会空间背景产生关键见解，为探视政策和更有效的监狱探视空间设计提供信息。在联合政府就政策改革，特别是与累犯有关的政策改革进行磋商之际，它抓住了影响政策和产生影响的机会。它代表了人文地理学、犯罪学、心理学和更广泛的社会理论等相关学科的前沿辩论的融合，并在“打破循环”倡议的背景下与英国个别监狱机构的政策发展产生共鸣。

In the aftermath of the 2011 UK riots, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke described the rioters as a 'feral underclass, cut off from the mainstream', and blamed the riots on the 'broken penal system - one whose record in preventing reoffending has been straightforwardly dreadful'. Reoffending or recidivism is key to the operation of the repetitive cycle of incarceration, re-entry, re-offending and re-incarceration, and represents a major policy challenge. In the UK, 75% of ex-inmates reoffend within nine years of release, and 39.3% within the first twelve months. Clarke's solution as set out in the government's "Breaking the Cycle" Green Paper is 'payment by results'; a 'radical and decentralising reform' with 'freedom to innovate' new interventions, opening 'the market to new providers from the private, voluntary and community sectors'. This project draws attention to prison visitation as an aspect of imprisonment which has already been demonstrated to improve the outcomes of released prisoners, but whose specific functionality is at present poorly understood. Through parallel methodologies, this project investigates the relationship between visitation and recidivism. This interdisciplinary project provides a new perspective on prison visitation and its relationship to the highly topical issue of recidivism in the UK. Macro-level statistical analysis in parallel with innovative mixed-methods research into visiting facilities will identify the nature of this relationship and its socio-spatial context, informing policy towards visitation and the design of visiting spaces, and contributing to broader debates about prisoner rehabilitation and resettlement. Research into studying recidivism finds that prison visitation is a significant factor in improving post-release outcomes; outcomes are in general much more positive for visited prisoners, and lower recidivism rates have been demonstrated across study populations and time periods. However, although the effect is widely observed, the causality is poorly understood. It is presumed that the maintenance of personal relationships and the feeling of 'connectedness' to home and community which may arise through visitation smooth reintegration after release, but this process has never been fully explored. The processes underlying persistent criminal careers remain a research gap, and very little is known about psychological change in relation to prison visits in terms of the psychological constructs which may mediate the relationship between visits and recidivism.In order to analyse the relationship between visitation and recidivism in the UK, the project uses national level statistics from the Ministry of Justice and the Police National Computer, with analysis carried out in conjunction with Ministry of Justice Analytical Services, and also explores the experience of visitation 'on the ground' in a West Midlands prison, investigating the ways in which prisoners, visitors and prison personnel experience prison visits; specifically the psychological effects of visitation, and the ways in which spatial context affects the kind of contact which takes place between prisoners and visitors.The project will uniquely generate both the most nuanced insights yet produced into the relationship between prison visitation and recidivism, and also critical insights into the socio-spatial context of prison visiting, to inform visitation policy and the design of more effective prison visiting spaces. It seizes an opportunity to influence policy and create impact, at a time when the the coalition government is consulting on policy reform, in particular in relation to recidivism. It represents convergence of cutting-edge debates in cognate disciplines of human geography, criminology, psychology and wider social theory, and resonates with policy development in individual prison institutions in the UK in the context of the 'Breaking the Cycle' initiative.