Distant Voices: Coming Home

遥远的声音回应紧迫的公共政策和政治挑战所造成的人数大幅上升，受到刑事制裁和高水平的重新犯罪。该计划颠覆了传统对“罪犯自新”的理解，并不关注“矫正罪犯”，而是探讨和改变罪犯在受惩罚后“回家”时所受到的待遇，目的是：（1）提高学术界和公众对罪犯受惩罚后重新融入社会的认识;（2）发展创新的做法，以更有效地支援罪犯重新融入社会;（3）加强对罪犯的教育。以及（3）更好地让一系列公民、社区和民间社会机构参与重新融入社会。作为一个合作行动研究项目，借鉴犯罪学，流行音乐，政治和其他学科，遥远的声音结合了创造性的做法（主要是歌曲创作和分享）、研究和知识交流，以促进关于重新融入社会的对话和学习，并加以实践和支持。组织和协会，形成一个“探索社区”和创造性实践。这一系列的参与者将在三个相互关联的活动。(1)在“共同创作的探索”中，参与者将彼此合作，并与专业音乐家一起创作歌曲，探索，代表和反思重新整合。(2)在“共同创作对话”中，这些歌曲将通过制作和发行一张备受瞩目的专辑、相关巡演和一系列公共活动（包括两个节日）来分享。还将制作一系列播客，并通过一个互动网站分享。(3)在“共同创造性发现”中，更广泛的调查社区的核心小组将与调查人员合作，使用合作参与观察，并开发和采用一系列其他社会科学和艺术为基础的研究方法，以探索他们的学习，并评估他们的学习成果。通过这些活动，遥远的声音渴望发展重返社会和康复的理论和概念，影响相关行为，为干预措施提供信息，更广泛地说，鼓励发展一个更公平和更有活力的社会。

Distant Voices responds to pressing public policy and political challenges created by huge rises in the numbers of people subject to penal sanctions and by high levels of reoffending. Turning conventional understandings of 'offender rehabilitation' on their head, the project is concerned not with 'correcting offenders' but rather with exploring and changing how they are received when 'coming home' after punishment.The project aims:(1) to improve academic and public understandings of social re/integration after punishment; (2) to develop innovative practices to better support re/integration; and (3) to better engage a range of citizens, communities and civil society institutions in re/integration. As a collaborative action research project drawing on criminology, popular music, politics and other disciplines, Distant Voices combines creative practices (principally songwriting and sharing), research and knowledge exchange to enable dialogue and learning about re/integration -- and to practice and support it. Its participatory methods draw together a wide range of differently situated citizens, organisations and associations to form a 'community of enquiry' and of creative practice. This range of participants will work across three inter-related activities. (1) In 'co-creative inquiry', participants will work with one another and with professional musicians to write songs that explore, represent and reflect on re/integration. (2) In 'co-creative dialogue' these songs will be shared through the production and release of a high-profile album, a related tour and a series of public events, including two festivals. A series of podcasts will also be produced and shared via an interactive website. (3) In 'co-creative discovery', a core group of the wider community of enquiry will work with the investigators to use collaborative participant observation and to develop and employ a range of other social science and arts-based research methods to explore their learning and to assess what has (and has not) been achieved in and through the project.Through these activities, Distant Voices aspires to develop theories and concepts of reintegration and rehabilitation, to influence related behaviours, to inform interventions and, more broadly, to encourage the development of a fairer and more vibrant society.