| Angus
McLewin, Executive Co-Director of the Unit for Arts
and Offenders, sets the scene |
|
The arts in criminal justice have come a long way
since the first Directory of Arts Activities in Prisons
was produced by the Unit for Arts and Offenders (the
Unit) in 1990. The arts are still not in the core
curriculum but our 2003 Directory shows 113 out of
138 prisons with one or more regular arts activities
within their main education programme. 99 establishments
hosted a total of 1,911 arts workshops, projects or
activities outside their main arts provision, led
by 95 arts organisations.
Historically, most projects have taken place in prisons,
but much is now happening in community contexts. Whilst
previous government programmes were tough on crime,
this government is famously tough on the causes of
crime. The Social Exclusion Unit's (SEU) Policy Action
Team (PAT) reports identified the interlinked factors
affecting social exclusion. Its subsequent report,
'Reducing Re-offending by Ex-offenders' (July 2002)
has become a blueprint, informing a plethora of crime
reduction and prevention programmes delivered through
a bewildering range of statutory and voluntary agencies
to reduce re-offending by 5% by March 2004.
This is a unique time in UK social policy, where we
are in the heart of joined-up practice, cascaded down
from the joined-up thinking and policy of the original
PAT reports. The criminal justice agenda cuts across
key government departments that, in turn, have policies
of partnership with the voluntary sector to deliver
effective programmes, set against stringent Key Performance
Targets (KPTs). The 3 broad areas are Crime Prevention,
Interventions within custodial and community sentences
and Resettlement. Artists are grappling with the complexities
of this multi-agency and cross-cutting provision to
maintain sustainable, high-quality arts programmes.
Many arts organisations have taken advantage of this
wealth of social policy provision, fighting their
way through the 47 funding streams of the Area Based
Initiatives (ABIs), forging new partnerships and pioneering
innovative ways of engaging people in participating
and experiencing the arts.
Prevention
The Youth Justice Board took on the responsibility
for preventing offending by children and young people
from the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. This established
Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) - multi-agency teams
including the police, social services, health, education
and probation services. It introduced a wider crime
reduction framework and has led to a changing relationship
between crime and disorder reduction work and local
authorities, which increasingly take a lead through
Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships and Community
Safety Partnerships. In parallel, new non-statutory
Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), bodies of local
stakeholders charged with shaping the future of their
neighbourhoods and service provision, also have crime
reduction as a core task. The Home Office and Local
Government Association (LGA) see LSPs as the key mechanism
for joining up public services at an authority-wide
level, linking crime reduction and cultural strategies
with the community strategy - strategies that are
local, district-based and encourage housing, employment,
voluntary and other agencies to become key partners
in tackling crime prevention.
How does this translate into actual arts projects?
Our 2001 survey for An Introduction to Working with
the Arts (YJB/ACE Paul Hamlyn) revealed that 116 YOT
teams ran 370 arts projects and activities, involving
107 arts organisations. The arts now play a strategic
role in supporting the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance
Programmes (ISSP) for the most persistent young offenders
in the country, regularly using innovative circus,
music, drama and comedy projects. Through Splash Extra
in Summer 2002, 125 artists/arts organisations managed
to provide 215 arts projects in the high street crime
areas, at 6 weeks notice.
continues
in next column
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Overall the project has had the
flexibility to respond to local need. Our reporting
back to the Government Office has focused on what we've
learnt and we've been allowed to develop our initial
proposals to reflect local issues - probably the most
flexible form of funding and reporting we've ever dealt
with.
Intervention
The emphasis on Basic and Key Skills, coupled with a
staggering rise in the prison population means that
the arts has to fight for its place in the 'societal
communities' of prison institutions. Responsibility
for prison education has moved to the Department for
Education and Skills, whose Offenders Learning and Skills
Unit (OLSU) focuses on the 3 key elements to successful
resettlement - education, training and employment skills,
and on working more closely with the Probation Service
to ensure continuity and community support. They are
creating a culture of learning, with the notion of prisons
as 'secure colleges'.
Artists are still delivering high-quality arts projects
for their intrinsic value, such as Dance United's challenging
and astonishing dance projects for young women at HMPYOI
Bullwood Hall and young men at HMYOI Wetherby and Irene
Taylor Trust-Music in Prisons' extraordinary multi-cultural
Festival in HMP Bullingdon. Safe Ground's 'Family Man'
programme, using the arts to address parenting and literacy,
is part of officially accredited provision in many prisons.
Resettlement
Education, training and employment opportunities after
release from custody or a community sentence are vital
in the criminal justice system's remit. Arts organisations
contribute valuable elements to community-based programmes
such as Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTOs) delivered
by voluntary sector agencies and the Probation Service.
Many community-based arts organisations are developing
progression routes for people they have worked with
on such programmes, providing art skills training and
developing mentoring and support schemes giving continuity
of access and participation. Aldeburgh Productions have
worked with juvenile offenders in new media skills and
training and support for them after release. Escape
Artists, based in Cambridge, is developing a long-term
support programme for young ex-offenders, initially
involving 3 Young Offender Institutions, providing mentoring
in the professional arts. This begins during sentence,
and continues after release for 6 months, aiming to
benefit 50 young people over the three-year life of
the project.
Conclusions
Having diagnosed the causes of crime, the challenge
now for the government is to 'cure' these causes, ideally
before the next election, through their range of 'treatment'
programmes. There is a danger, however, that the specialist
arts in criminal justice sector, by engaging with these
programmes, could be judged on their failure to reduce
street crime, for example, rather than on their success
in increasing the cultural and citizenship rights of
those who have been identified and labelled as outside
of mainstream society.
The dedicated and principled artists and organisations
developing work in this area of criminal justice, at
the cutting-edge of social inclusion, need to be supported
and listened to. They are all too often caught up in
a cycle of re-allocation of funding that can keep them
excluded from working effectively with the very people
the government has targeted, and reducing their contribution
to creating a healthier and more humane society.
Contact:
Angus McLewin, Unit for the Arts and Offenders, 01227
470629
angus.mclewin@a4offenders.org.uk,
www.a4offenders.org.uk
(PDF access for a range of key publications) |
