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Greener on the Outside for Prisons (GOOP) is a therapeutic horticulture programme targeting the high levels of complex health and social care needs in prisons in England. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns led to unprecedented disruption in prisons in England. This paper examines the experiences of prisoners both during and post-lockdowns in four prisons, to understand the effects of participation in GOOP on health and wellbeing after the disruption of restrictions, and identify implications for developing this programme further.

The paper is based on original qualitative data gathered from in-depth narrative-based interviews and focus groups with prisoners and staff in four English prisons. Audio data was transcribed and subject to a thematic analysis, drawing from a realist-informed lens.

Thematic analysis revealed five key themes: reimagining the GOOP context; increasing empathy between participants; building sense of coherence; reconnecting with nature and a joined-up connection with provider services. The main arguments centre on horticulture in prisons remaining under-utilised as a means of promoting good health and wellbeing, although there is enthusiasm from staff to provide green spaces for the most vulnerable prisoners and develop a range of mechanisms to connect people in prison with nature.

This paper focuses on new knowledge arising from an unprecedented situation in English prisons, from key stakeholders on the frontline of garden activities. Accounts demonstrate the extent of the health and wellbeing benefits of participation in such activities in this challenging environment, which has implications for practice for prisons more widely.

Around the world, prison complexes have always been fundamentally taxing environments. The strained atmosphere within these prisons often contributes to the deterioration of mental health, mostly those who may already be psychologically vulnerable. This paper aims to understand whether there exists a relationship between the built environment of prisons, particularly the central prisons of India and its effects on the mental health of inmates.

By means of literature reviews, the study parameters were found to be connectivity to nature, lighting, acoustics, colour, air quality and thermal comfort. The data collected through interviews and email correspondences with identified experts were analysed thematically using a deductive approach to derive a set of practical recommendations, which could be implemented in Indian prisons.

The built environment of prisons impacts the prison population by further contributing to depressive symptoms. The effects of the built space persist regardless of social factors. A well-designed environment is healthy for its occupants and would yield positive changes. However, it is not the sole contributor to depression; social interactions, prison management, societal acceptance and meaningful activities are equally relevant factors. The sole focus of this paper is the relationship between the built environment and the mental health of inmates.

There is a paucity of research into the intersection between prison architecture and the mental health of inmates in the Indian subcontinent. This paper that addresses the gap may have significant consequences on how criminal reform is perceived, and also encourage further research in this field.

Prisons can utilize effective business process, operations management and continuous improvement techniques to provide an opportunity to support the rehabilitation of inmates. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Iowa Prison Industries (IPI) work training program offered for incarcerated individuals under the supervision of the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC).

The IPI developed an Operational Excellence (OpEx) apprenticeship program that has worked with approximately 800 incarcerated “associates” to help them acquire skills necessary to obtain gainful employment upon release. This includes skills and belt level assessment in Lean Six Sigma as well as 6S/5S events and training. These techniques have been deployed by 22 teams at seven locations across the state of Iowa (USA). These sites have established objectives and goals and provided significant security-related benefits in the correctional industries environment.

Findings and success outcomes have been encouraging as those who completed the IPI apprenticeship program had lower recidivism, higher wages and more employability compared to the general prison population.

The rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals is critical to society. This novel and unique case study reviews one approach to providing work and life skills (such as esteem-building professional and personal skill sets) to support this process within the prison system.

This OpEx program has provided numerous benefits to both IPI and the incarcerated individuals. We feel that these findings could be beneficial to other correctional institutions and better prepare more inmates for a successful return to the workforce and to society.

This chapter considers the modes and politics of refugee representation, and the function of art and literature as sites of resistance to, or the reinforcing of, dehumanising or idealised tropes of people seeking refugee protection. Specifically, the chapter addresses the connection between dehumanised representations of the imagined refugee and the violence and ‘logic’ of Australia’s offshore detention regime in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. In engaging with these issues, the chapter draws on Manus Prison Theory and its focus on who gets to represent refugee experience, and to generate knowledge about it and on what terms. It considers these questions through an examination of two contrasting art projects, which alternately raise and contest the idea of the ‘deserving refugee’. In exploring these questions, the chapter also engages with the temporalities of refugee representation and the role of crisis in generating ‘stock’ refugee representations. It ultimately argues that the politics of refugee representation are central to questions of refugee and migrant justice, and further, that we cannot separate contemporary forms and representations of violence against refugees from colonial and neocolonial acts of sovereignty and expulsion.

This study aims to learn about the experiences of inmates who experienced long periods of isolation due to a COVID-19 outbreak in the Brians 1 penitentiary centre. This approach is relevant, as it sought to understand the experiences from the perspective of the prisoners during periods of isolation. The aim was to gain in-depth knowledge, based on the idiosyncrasies of this population, of their emotions and coping strategies in the prison context. This information that may be useful to prison institutions and prison primary healthcare teams to guide the organisation in future health emergencies involving the isolation of prisoners.

A qualitative interpretative phenomenological study was conducted. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 30 people who had undergone a period of isolation due to a COVID-19 outbreak in one or two of the last two outbreaks at the Brians 1 (Barcelona) prison in 2022, in the days following periods of social isolation. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using the content analysis approach, and were coded using the NVivo 12 qualitative software. The credibility and validity of the data analysed were increased through triangulation at different levels. In this study, data was collected from a heterogeneous sample of prisoners, capturing different views among the prison population.

This research gave us the opportunity to collect prisoners’ accounts of isolation due to COVID-19, in which it became clear that it conditioned the management of time and space in daily prison life. The restrictions amplified negative emotions such as anxiety, stress and restlessness and led to disruptions in communication with the outside world, daily prison activities and judicial processes. Despite these changes, the prisoners understood the imperatives of isolation and the need to adapt to the new situation for a limited period of time. Faced with the detrimental effect on their well-being, the prisoners employed coping strategies focused on emotional management, social supports and occupational engagement.

This study is subject to several limitations related to the characteristics of the sample. No women participated in the study as the modules studied were exclusively for men. People with impaired cognitive abilities, were not included. With regard to the method, it is understood that conducting the interviews in the days after the isolation may have influenced the content and enthusiasm of the participants. Despite these limitations, we are confident that the data triangulation may have given us reliable insight that will further our knowledge of prisoners’ experiences in this type of situation.

The issue of the negative impact of restrictive measures in the prison environment has rarely been studied from the perspective of prisoners. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide qualitative data on the experiences of prisoners during periods of social isolation due to COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons in Catalonia (Spain). The narratives allowed the authors to determine what impact the restrictions had on the emotional well-being and daily life of the prison population, information that can help prison institutions and healthcare teams understand how prisoners experienced this type of situation. The authors were also able to carry out an in-depth study of the coping strategies used by the prisoners to deal with negative emotions during the COVID-19 outbreaks, which may serve to guide the organisation of material and human resources in future emergencies or regimented situations involving social isolation.

This paper explores the role of accounting and accountability techniques in contributing to Australia’s border industrial complex.

We use the political thought of Behrouz Boochani to explore the role that accounting techniques play at the micro and macro level of his dialectic of alienation and freedom. Firstly, we explore the accounting and accountability techniques detailed in Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountain, which gives an account of his life in Manus Prison, and the accounting techniques he experienced. Secondly, we explore the discourse of alienation created within the annual reporting of the Australian Federal Government regarding the border industrial complex.

We argue that the border industrial complex requires the alienation of asylum seekers from their own humanity for capital accumulation, and that accounting and accountability techniques facilitate this form of alienation. These techniques include inventorying, logging and queuing at the micro level within Manus Prison. This alienates those trapped in the system from one another and themselves. Techniques also include annual reporting at a macro level which alienates those trapped in the system from the (White) “Australian Community”. However, these techniques are resisted at every point by assertions of freedom.

We illustrate the role of accounting in accumulation by alienation, where the unfreedom of incarcerated asylum seekers is a site of profit for vested interests. But also that this alienation is resisted at every point by refusals of alienation as assertions of freedom. Thus, this study contributes to the accounting literature by drawing from theories of alienation, and putting forward the dialectic of alienation and freedom articulated by Boochani and collaborators.

In response to instrumental cultural policy agendas in the United Kingdom, the paper explores the practice of collaborative cultural work in the criminal justice system through the lens of professional ethics in prison libraries. It seeks to balance narratives on the value of arts and culture in cross-government policy agendas with a nuanced consideration of the realities of such work in non-conventional organisational settings.

“Instrumental Values: Professional ethics in collaborative cultural work” was a two-year empirical study (2017–2019), including ethnographic fieldwork in three case study sites representing prison library services in England. Following a “communities of practice” conceptual framework, research methods included participant observation of day-to-day cultural work and specific events; successive research interviews with library and prison service staff and volunteers; and interviews with key collaborating organisations from extended professional networks.

Data from three prison library case studies show consistent ethical implications relating to the extent of collaborative complexity in the field and its impact on participants’ emotional resilience; navigation of the prison regime by cultural workers; consequences for emotional labour and care in the field; and the re-negotiation of ethical boundaries and practices.

The research makes an original contribution to debates on the instrumental value of arts and culture via its intimate focus on prison libraries as microcosms of situated, truly integrated cultural work, both from a physical, organisational perspective and in their representation of a cross-policy function for arts and culture.

The purpose of the study is to investigate female prisoners’ perspectives on why they gain weight while in prison.

A qualitative design was used with semi-structured interviews with six females currently residing in a prison in the south of England.

Analysis of the data generated three themes relating to the reasons why women gain weight in prison. These were labelled as “The only thing you haven’t got to ask permission for is your food, it’s just handed to you”, “If you’ve been stripped of the things that make you happy, or that you are addicted to, eating can soothe you” and “prison can make you take better care of your health”.

The results identify perceived reasons why women gain weight in prison uniquely from the female prisoner perspective. The implications of the research identify the need for systemic change throughout different prison departments to enable women to maintain a healthy weight during their custodial sentence.

The correctional system continues to face challenges with responding to and managing methamphetamine use among incarcerated individuals. This study aims to uncover what resources and policies could better help correctional workers deal with these challenges. The authors also examined methamphetamine’s impact on correctional work and staff well-being.

An online survey was distributed to correctional workers (n = 269) in Manitoba, Canada, featuring questions about their experiences related to methamphetamine use in populations under their care, what supports are needed to adequately address the concern, and the potential effects on self and their occupational responsibilities. Using NVivo software, survey responses were analysed using an emergent theme approach.

Correctional workers believed policies and protocols for managing methamphetamine use and withdrawal are currently inadequate. Correctional workers reported having monthly contact with incarcerated individuals experiencing methamphetamine withdrawal, posing safety concerns to them and other incarcerated individuals. Respondents proposed more education and training on managing incarcerated people withdrawing from methamphetamines, related to the symptoms of use and withdrawal and how to support persons detoxing. Increased human and material resources were reported as being needed (e.g. more nurses onsite and better screening devices). Respondents also desired more medical intervention, safe living spaces for methamphetamine users and programming to support addiction.

The current study unpacks correctional workers’ perspectives, support desires and their experiences managing methamphetamine use amongst incarcerated people. The authors discuss the required knowledge to respond to gaps in prison living, re-entry and related policy needs.

Racism occurs in many ways and varies across countries, evolving and adapting to sociocultural history, as well as contemporary economic, political and technological changes. This chapter discusses the multilevel dimensions of racism and its diverse manifestations across multiracial societies. It examines how different aspects of racism are mediated interpersonally, and embedded in institutions, social structures and processes, that produce and sustain racial inequities in power, resources and lived experiences. Furthermore, this chapter explores the direct and indirect ways racism is expressed in online and offline platforms and details its impacts on various groups based on their intersecting social and cultural identities. Targets of racism are those who primarily bear the adverse effects. However, racism also affects its perpetrators in many ways, including by limiting their social relations and attachments, and by imposing social and economic costs. This chapter thus analyses the many aspects of racism both from targets and perpetrators' perspectives.