Brazil, England, and Wales boast the highest levels of imprisonment in South America and Western Europe. Moreover, conditions in British and Brazilian prisons have rapidly deteriorated in the past decade, negatively impacting everyday prison living and working environments, as well as the longer-term prospects for inmate rehabilitation.
Dr Sacha Darke and Dr Andreas Aresti identified seven key barriers to higher education learning in UK prisons and resolved them through the design and delivery of participatory higher education courses at various prisons. This provision of access to higher education learning has produced the related impacts of: increased social reintegration and mobility of prisoners, the reduction of negative perceptions of prisoners from ‘outside’ students, and the recruitment of the latter into work within the prison sector. This study centres on the practice and implementation of inmate participation in social science higher education, as devised on the basis of research into participatory prisons and convict criminology.
Summary of the research
Of most significance to Darke and Aresti’s research, prison inmate-guard ratios have increased significantly in both countries. Inmate numbers have doubled in Brazil, without any increase in staffing; the number of guards has fallen by a third in England and Wales, without a reduction in inmate numbers. This has had major consequences for the extent to which convicts are able to spend time out of their cells participating in purposeful activities which are internationally recognised as having positive impacts on prisoner rehabilitation. Given such activities rely on the sufficient provision of supervision by guards, the increase in the inmate-guard ratio has potentially negative consequences for prisoner rehabilitation and their ability to cope with prison.
Since 2008, Darke has studied the means by which prisoners self-govern in the absence of guards across Latin America. In 2010 and 2012, Darke completed ethnographic studies of institutional order at two prisons in which inmates were entrusted to participate in all areas of prison governance, including security and discipline. Both prisons were characterised by good inmate and staff-inmate relations, especially among those involved in prison governance activities, and low levels of indiscipline and conflict between and among prison inmates and guards overall. In 2020, Darke was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship to study two voluntary sector prisons in greater depth.
These findings on the benefits of Brazilian convicts taking on the role of prison wardens provide further insights into the concept of convict criminology, an international ex-prisoner-led movement of which Darke and Aresti are leading figures. It aims to develop collaborative research between social scientists, prisoners, and former prisoners, and to support prisoners and former prisoners through higher education and into academic and criminal justice positions. Darke and Aresti helped establish the British Convict Criminology (BCC) research-activist group in 2012 to achieve these aims in a practical way. Through BCC, the researchers established an academic mentoring scheme for former prisoners studying social science degrees, and three prison higher education initiatives in which prisoners study with University of Westminster students and contribute to the course content. Not only do the projects provide prisoners with qualifications, but they are specifically designed to engage prisoners in reflecting upon their experiences of crime and punishment. Likewise, outside learners increase their understanding of criminology through mentoring and hearing the perspectives of prisoners. Given the potential of this initiative, in 2020 Darke secured a Quintin Hogg Trust grant to finance the projects until 2023.
Breaking Down the Barriers in UK Prison Education
Between September 2012 and July 2013, Dr Darke and Dr Aresti undertook a survey of 27 prisoners in order to identify the key barriers to higher education study inside prisons. Seven key barriers were identified, and Darke and Aresti created the impact of breaking these down by using their research into participatory prisons and convict criminology to shape their prisoner-university partnership model of education.
Darke and Aresti’s prison projects involve third year University of Westminster students studying criminology inside prison with prisoner students. The two sets of students share academic knowledge as well as understanding of crime, justice, and desistance from crime gained from personal experiences. The course of study (eight lessons of three to four hours) has been delivered at HMP Pentonville since 2015 and runs twice a year, while the HMP Grendon and HMP Coldingley courses started in 2017 and are run monthly, all year round. Five of the key barriers to prison education were directly addressed within the design of these courses. The Grendon and Coldingley projects have been put on hold during the pandemic, but the Pentonville project has been uniquely delivered at a distance through Microsoft Teams. Aresti and Darke are currently working with University College Croydon, who intend to initiate a convict criminology prison-based education programme at HMP Bronzefield, based on the Pentonville model.
In regard to the barriers of a lack of higher level courses and the pressure to study at a lower level or participate in non-academic skills training, the researchers have provided access to higher level courses to prison-based students (“inside learners”). The Pentonville course has been accredited by University of Westminster since 2018 which means inside learners receive level 3 (foundation year) credits that count towards their future degrees and provide them with a pathway to higher education, whereas all other courses at the prison are level 1 or 2.
The Grendon and Coldingley projects expand on the above approach by allowing participatory learning between Westminster students and prisoners studying social science degrees with the Open University. At Grendon all students study at level 6, while at Coldingley all students study at level 7 (Master's certification). The 2019/20 cohort are currently working on 7 academic papers with Darke and Aresti to be presented at a three-day international CC symposium and subsequently submitted for publication as a book on inmate perspectives on prison.
The social and educational benefits of the projects are attested to by inside learners in testimony. For instance, an inside learner who has been in prison for 15 years, writes:
“The knowledge I have gained around criminology […] has allowed me to understand a lot more about myself and my circumstances”, that his enrolment onto Westminster’s PhD programme “will have a huge impact on my future and help me with the work I intend to do in the crime diversion sector”, and that involvement with the “BCC has made me a lot more confident in various aspects of my life, educationally, socially, confident I will desist from crime and have a positive future”.
In regard to the problem of a lack of resources, “The partnership between University of Westminster and HMP Pentonville sparked the University’s Outreach team, who were involved in delivery of the sessions, to run a textbook drive. They donated over 50 degree-level textbooks to HMP Pentonville library." The University has continued to pay for textbooks since the projects began in 2016. In relation to this, and the further identified barrier of a lack of access to the internet, the course design also responds to such issues of access through its mentorship elements. In regard to the problem of practical barriers (attitudes of prison staff and other prisoners, prison transfers, etc), the students at Pentonville are “put on hold” by national prison authorities during the three months of the module, meaning they are not at risk of being transferred until they have completed their course. This ensures that their learning is not disrupted.
A further impact of these courses is that both sets of students (Westminster and prisoners) find that the project plays a beneficial role in challenging the broader stigma attached to crime and imprisonment. Amanda Baldry, a participating Distance Learning Tutor at Coldingley, states:
“The group helps the prisoners to gain employability skills that they are unable to develop through distance learning alone as they are able to exchange ideas and perspectives with other students and academics in a seminar style setting”.
In regard to outside learners, more than 15 alumni went on to work or volunteer for prison, probation and prisoner support services. Given the issue of understaffing in these sectors, the mentorship and collaborative aspects of these programmes have had a beneficial effect on recruitment in this field.
These programmes have also resulted in inside learners progressing onto further higher education degrees. At Pentonville, 10 inside learners are enrolled on each module run. 31 of the 40 students who started the course graduated with 20 level 3 credits. Of the approximately 100 inside learners that have completed the module to date, 21 have subsequently started degrees at the Open University. 25 prisoner students have so far participated at Grendon and Coldingley. Of the latter, ten have since progressed onto lower security prisons or been released. One transferred to Westminster from the Open University to complete his degree, while two commenced PhDs under Darke and Aresti’s supervision. As far as they are aware, they are only the third and fourth prisoners to start a Criminology PhD in a British prison.
Replication of this Approach to Prison Education in South America
In July 2019, an adapted version of the higher education model Darke and Aresti first developed at Pentonville was also piloted at a voluntary sector prison in the city of São Luis, Maranhão, Brazil. The project – Another Vision – was fully implemented by Universidade Estadual de Maranhão (UEMA) in October 2019. It ran for 20 of the planned 32 weeks for 2019-20, until late March when Brazilian prisons also went into lockdown. 31 prisoners and 10 UEMA students participated. The convenors released a documentary on the project on YouTube in December 2020. In 2022, UEMA will initiate a second convict criminology project, this time in the state penitentiary.
The success of this prison project is evidenced by the fact that it has been praised by the Brazilian government, who are seeking to expand the reach of its benefits. At a meeting with Maranhão state prison authorities and the Secretary of State for Penitentiary Administration it was agreed that UEMA would replicate the Pentonville model at two more prisons from January 2021, although these plans are currently suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Darke also convened meetings at the Brazilian National Justice Council and National Prisons Department (DEPEN) regarding funding for UEMA's existing project in São Luis as well as the implementation of the Pentonville model in other parts of the country, although progression on these plans have likewise been disrupted by the COVID pandemic.
The replication of Darke and Aresti’s prison education model is also occurring elsewhere in South America. For instance, a representative of Grupo De Estudos em Criminologias Contemporâneas (GECC), a criminology research group comprising members from universities across the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, visited the Pentonville project in October 2019 and has since engaged in ongoing knowledge exchange with Darke and Aresti. As the GECC representative confirms, this has resulted in the launch of the Criminologia de Condenados project.
The University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina, runs a project involving prisoner students studying for university degrees in their prison-based university centre. However, they do not yet study alongside “outside” university students. For this reason, following Darke and Aresti’s presentations of their model at the UBA centre, one of the UBA coordinators visited the Westminster prison projects in the UK to explore how the model can be incorporated within the UBA programme. In 2020, UBA and UoW signed a memorandum of understanding to facilitate knowledge exchange and the sharing of good practice between them.
Find out more
Connect with Dr Sacha Darke.
Connect with Dr Andreas Aresti.