How teaching philosophy in prisons shows different way for rehabilitation

How teaching philosophy in prisons shows different way for rehabilitation

By Kirstine Szifris, Research Associate in Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University  

Szifris is the author of the new book Philosophy Behind Bars: Growth and Development in Prison

For 20 years there has been a push for policy and programming in the prison system, based on supposed evidence of ‘what works’. Yet prison reoffending rates remain high, with violence and self-harm a rising problem across England and Wales.

As we’ve recently seen in the BBC TV drama Time, the prison environment can be hostile and difficult to navigate. You have to show no weakness, project authority and show no emotion in the face of the people you meet.

How, in such an environment, do we realistically expect rehabilitation to take place?

For those who have been working in prisons research in recent years, there is a growing agreement that change needs to happen. Not just a change, but a complete overhaul.

Our prison rehabilitation system is based upon a standardised risk-based model.

At the beginning of their sentence, each person is given a ‘risk category’, which they carry with them throughout. The system influences the courses and behavior programmes they will participate in, as well as the privileges they have, with the aim to reduce their risk status over time.

In reality, these programmes are often seen by prisoners themselves as not much more than bureaucratic, tick box exercises that don’t really address their needs. 

This is because the system can be described as fundamentally flawed and our focus is too narrow.

The ‘risk model’ focuses on ‘criminogenic deficits’, which are factors linked to offending behavior. However, the model does not properly recognise that these deficits do not occur in a vacuum – the programmes fail to engage with the whole person and take account of all that a person is, despite what they may have done.

Essentially, there is strong reason to believe another way is not only possible but could be more effective. My own research, which I talk about in my new book Philosophy Behind Bars, reveals what an alternative rehabilitation model could look like.

If the prison system is supposed to be about rehabilitation, then at best it works for only a small number of people, some of the time.

It involved teaching philosophy to some of the highest security people in the prison system, and it soon became clear that the current system can (and often does) cultivate what we refer to as ‘survival’ identities.

If the prison system is supposed to be about rehabilitation, then at best it works for only a small number of people, some of the time. But in my experience, those who successfully found a new path often did so in spite of the system, not because of it.

That is not to say that there are not opportunities in prison.

Of course, there are vocational learning opportunities, therapeutic environments and mentoring programmes. However, they are a side show to the main activity – working in low skilled, monotonous jobs in workshops, combined with a few short-term offender behaviour courses.

There is so much emphasis on risk management that the system ends up categorising people in prison, herding them through the system without providing sufficient time for working out what they will do with their lives when they get out of the system. 

For 18 months, I spent time in two prisons in England, engaging men serving long sentences in philosophical conversation. We discussed some of the big questions in life; What is identity? What does it mean to be human? How should we organise society? What does it mean to live the ‘good life’?

They were living significant portions of their lives in prison and my aim was to understand the relevance of providing space to have such conversation. When serving decades behind bars, what does it mean to self-reflect, or to grow and develop as a person?

Working for 12 weeks in Grendon (a therapeutic community) and Full Sutton (a maximum security prison) highlighted the role philosophy could play. It highlighted the themes of trust, relationships, wellbeing, open-mindedness, self-reflection and self-articulation and pointed towards a different way of engaging people in these spaces.

It demonstrated the importance of meeting the whole person, of seeing them as active agents in their own lives, with a need to understand both themselves and the broader context in which they live.

We must develop a system that cultivates growth and provides opportunities for personal development.

I found that the prisoners were natural philosophers. They have time and space to think about who they are, how they have got there and where they want to go, but often lack the vehicle to think about these issues. This is where philosophy comes in.

The men engaged in the classes with an eagerness that reflected both their need for intellectual stimulation  and their need to be treated as something other than an offender.

What my research shows, is that we must develop a system that cultivates growth and provides opportunities for personal development. We have to find ways to divert people towards something (as opposed to just focusing on diverting them away from something).

Otherwise, we are doomed to see the same results – high reconviction rates, little rehabilitation, people leaving prison with little idea of what to do next and high risk of returning to the streets and back to the lifestyles that landed them there in the first place.

But, perhaps more importantly, this is about how we as a society ought to be treating people in prison.

This is about being human. Not just for the prisoners, but because it might, just might, work better.