The Benefits Of Prison Rehabilitation

Every year, the number of inmates’ increases across the world and crimes are spreading faster and faster worldwide. And maybe the only solution we have now is to put these criminals in prison so that they are separated from the rest of the society and thereby protect innocent people. This may be the main purpose of prison; “incapacitation”. That is as long as the criminal is in prison, he is unable to commit more crimes outside thus he is no longer a threat to society. One might say that punishment is the best for these people; but they are forgetting the fact that one day these people are going to be released and let out in the real world again and back to their crime record (at least for the majority of them) since more that 70% of prisoners

You don’t need to be an artist to receive the benefits, professional art therapists will be working with you to dive into the underlying messages communicated through your art which will aid through the rehabilitation process. Research from the US, Ireland and the UK shows that prisoners are more likely to have literacy difficulties than the rest of the population and have a negative attitude to learning and are resistant to education which can lead to a regression in their behaviors (Batchelder and Pippert, 2002; Cropsey, Wexler, Melnick, taxman and Young, 2007). So the need of a new and smooth technique was obligatory so that prisoners react in a good way. Hurry, Brazzier and Wilson (2009) found in their study that prisoners were became more engaged when the program was more active and involved more activities. Involving prisoners in art leads to a great impact on them, and these benefits fall into two categories; one relates to the creative activity itself (like participating in drama workshop, practicing musical instruments or dance performance) and the other is the by-product of the activity such as an increase in self-confidence, more self-esteem; also a development of empathy on their fellow prisoners, family and prison-staff. According to a previous research (Batchelder and Pippert, 2002; Cropsey, Wexler, Melnick, taxman and Young, 2007), involvement in the arts is a humanizing experience, it lead to a changing in negative

What could also be a great push to prisoners is having art exhibitions and shared with the society since art now means so much for these men and is a way for expressing their inner hidden thoughts that were repressed.

Therefore, it’s clear that getting involved into art therapy is a good way of building an active learning culture and motivating participants to engage in learning literacy in ways that suited them. As a result, participants in such projects will not only learn the collaborative work but they will also build self-confidence through the growing of their potential and ability to achieve what they’re seeking for. It may seem a little bit challenging at first but with a little patience and with the help of the professional art therapists things will get better (Tett lyn, Kristin Anderson and Fergus Mcneil