Inspiring Futures: Footprints

艺术对刑事司法系统中的男性和女性的变革潜力是该领域工作人员所熟知的，但要充分和系统地捕捉艺术参与的多重影响，还存在重大挑战。对于收入依赖赠款和佣金的艺术组织来说，展示影响力的能力至关重要，特别是在经济紧缩时期。许多现有的影响研究是对单一艺术学科的个别项目进行小规模评估，后续时间很短。他们的研究结果经常指出积极的短期效果，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，停止犯罪，以及更广泛的生活质量和艺术界。还有一些重要的问题是，什么构成了艺术影响的有力证据，以及艺术实践与研究评估之间的关系。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，这些组织与监狱和英国社区中的不同罪犯和前罪犯群体进行接触：鹅剧院;干净的休息;良好的振动;只有连接;协同;艾琳泰勒信托;开放式扣; Hampton Arts和Koestler Trust。通过这一合作，该项目将从理论上了解表演艺术在刑事司法中的贡献，并制定技术创新和可持续的参与性评价研究方法。通过这些活动，它旨在促进在刑事司法环境中扩大和嵌入艺术举措，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.