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，需要专门照顾的“新”人口（如老年人、退伍军人）；在空间上加剧过度拥挤影响的老化和破旧的地产；以牺牲其他目标为代价的对安全的关注；新型危险药物和非法电话的大量涌入；以及前所未有的在押死亡人数。为了应对这些危机，政府正在实施一项雄心勃勃的现代化方案（60年来的第一次），其核心是建造多达9座新监狱，并提供额外的10,000个监狱名额。这些计划代表了一个千载难逢的机会，不仅可以建造现代化的符合用途的设施，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，惩罚和改造是政策的两个矛盾的驱动因素，在“有效性”和“效率”的背景下制定和实施，部长们认为，这是超大型监狱提供的规模经济最能实现的目标。因此，尽管大量奖学金发现较小的设施更能安全收容囚犯，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，但政府仍然致力于建造1000多个床位的“大型监狱”。与此同时，囚犯在刑满释放后往往准备不足，重返社会可能是一件受欢迎但最终是灾难性的事件。阻碍成功重新安置的因素包括：暴露于过度拥挤、残酷和/或不卫生的拘留环境所造成的长期健康问题；由于监狱位置偏远和探访安排不佳，导致家庭关系破裂；未解决的暴力和药物滥用问题；由于受教育程度低和有犯罪记录，就业前景有限；而且，对于长期囚犯来说，缺乏在现代社会中发挥作用所需的基本、必要技术的经验。在这种背景下，改造囚犯似乎是一个渺茫的目标，因此，被媒体称为“英国超级监狱的典范”（BBC， 2017年2月28日）的HMP Berwyn监狱于2017年开业，是一个重要的里程碑。该监狱可容纳2106名囚犯，是欧洲第二大监狱（与英格兰的奥克伍德监狱并列），也是英格兰和威尔士最大的公立监狱。它也是运营成本最低的，预计每名囚犯每年的成本仅为1.4万英镑，而全国平均水平为3.25万英镑。然而，伯温也是英格兰和威尔士第一个被指定为“康复监狱”的拘留设施，从一开始就融入了“康复文化”。如果这次任务成功，Berwyn监狱将成为2021年建成的下一阶段监狱的“旗舰”模型。这项研究由莱斯特大学和肯特大学以及HMP Berwyn的一个研究小组进行，研究将对Berwyn监狱实现改造承诺的程度进行实证调查，并将利用研究结果为当前和未来有关监狱如何设计和运营的辩论提供信息。根据申请人现有的esrc资助的研究，并利用在这些项目中建立的关键利益相关者关系和网络，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。该项目挑战了传统智慧和想当然的假设，富有想象力、意义重大且及时。

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.