1,720,968 research outputs found
A “very decent nick”: ethical treatment in prison-based democratic therapeutic communities
No full textThe penal system of England and Wales has been greatly influenced in the past two decades by the emergence of a moral framework or ‘decency agenda’. What decency means to prisoners and how decency can be embodied into daily prison life, however, remains underexplored. Drawing from her original research in prison-based democratic therapeutic communities (TCs), the author argues that decency is experienced in TCs through an ethic of care and an ethos of change. TC residents benefit from atypical institutional practices which encourage the formation of supportive relationships with prison staff and facilitate meaningful opportunities for personal change
'I am the person now I was always meant to be': identity reconstruction and narrative reframing in therapeutic community prisons
No full textDrawing upon semi-ethnographic research, this article explores desistance in process among serious offenders residing in democratic therapeutic communities. It is argued that offender rehabilitation in therapeutic communities involves a process of purposive and agentic reconstruction of identity and narrative reframing, so that a ‘new’ and ‘better’ person emerges whose attitudes and behaviours cohere with long-term desistance from crime. This is possible because the prison-based therapeutic community, with its commitment to a radically ‘different’ culture and mode of rehabilitation, socially enables, produces and reinforces the emergence of someone ‘different’. The article therefore develops existing understandings of change in forensic therapeutic communities, and reaffirms theories of desistance which emphasize the importance of pro-social changes to the offender’s personal identity and self-narrative
Sex in prison: experiences of former prisoners. London: Howard League for Penal Reform, Commission on Sex in Prison
No full textOffender rehabilitation and therapeutic communities: enabling change the TC way
No full textOffender rehabilitation has become increasingly and almost exclusively associated with structured cognitive-behavioural programmes. For fifty years, however, a small number of English prisons have promoted an alternative method of rehabilitation: the democratic therapeutic community (TC). These prisons offer long-term prisoners convicted of serious offences the opportunity to undertake group psychotherapy within an overtly supportive and esteem-enhancing living environment.Drawing upon original research conducted with ‘residents’ (prisoners) and staff at three TC prisons, Offender Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Communities provides a uniquely evocative and engaging portrayal of the TC regime. Individual chapters focus on residents’ adaptation to ‘the TC way’ of rehabilitation and imprisonment; the development of caring relationships between community members; residents’ contributions towards the safe and efficient running of their community; and the greater assimilation of sexual offenders within TCs for men, made possible in part by a lessening in ‘hypermasculinity’.By analyzing residents’ own accounts of ‘desistance in process’ in the TC, this book argues that TCs help offenders to change by enabling positive developments to their personal identity and self-narratives: to the ways in which they see themselves and their life. The radically ‘different’ penal environment allows its residents to become someone ‘different’
Sexual activity in British men's prisons: a culture of denial
Get PDFTheorized through Stanley Cohen’s sociology of denial and informed by testimonies from formerly imprisoned men, this article argues that a culture of denial limits the ability and willingness of prison authorities and prison staff to recognise, acknowledge, and respond appropriately to the realities of sexual activity in British prisons. It has three objectives: to detail experiences of consensual and coercive sex; to elucidate the collective and collaborative cultural habit of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ by which what it known becomes not known and what is concealed, remains hidden; and to show how this strategy leaves unprotected those who choose to engage in, or are coerced into, sexual activity
The “meanings” of female staff in male therapeutic community prisons: gender as symbolism and specialism
Get PDFInformed by observations of and interviews with male prisoners and female staff, this article proposes that women working in democratic therapeutic communities are credited by prisoners with two ‘meanings’: as symbolic representatives of familial and intimate nurturers and as gender specialists. The former allows for the emergence of transference relationships, which invites analysis of prior, present, and prospective attachments. The latter enables the communication and translation of ‘the woman’s perspective’, which encourages the development of empathy. Both increase appreciation, and advance reduction, of male offenders’ risk factors. Accordingly, the gender of female staff represents a significant rehabilitative resource
Prisoners’ motivations for therapeutic community treatment: in search of a “different” approach to offender rehabilitation
No full textOffenders' motivations to undertake rehabilitative programmes are underexplored. Drawing upon semi-ethnographic research, this article considers the reasons why prisoners apply to join a democratic therapeutic community. It identifies a typology of motivation to participate, and determines that most applicants are seeking an alternative to the rehabilitative hegemony of structured, manualized, cognitive-behavioural interventions. The findings have important implications for correctional staff, and in particular, offender managers, who are best placed to identify and encourage suitable offenders to apply for administration
Chapter 1. Introducing forensic democratic therapeutic communities
No full textThis chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Psychiatric Origins A ‘Living-Learning’ ‘Culture of Enquiry’ ‘A Penal Institution of a Special Kind’ Grendon and Beyond: TC Units Conclusion Reference
- …
