Seeing beyond the uniform: prisoners’ positive views of HMP Grendon: a National Association of Official Prison Visitors (NAOPV) report

Abstract

HMP Grendon is a Category B therapeutic community (TC) prison, where men choose to come if they want tochange their offending behaviour and reduce their risk of further offending. Thus, spending time at Grendon is voluntary within the constraints of the individual’s sentence. Men must meet Grendon’s admission criteria andexpress a willingness to change. At Grendon, the men live together and regulate each other’s behaviour, as well as taking part in regular intensive group therapy and complementary therapies such as art therapy andpsychodrama (Sullivan, 2006). Men are expected to stay at Grendon for the duration of their therapy, which usually lasts between eighteen months and two years, before returning to the ‘normal’ prison system to finish their sentence. In a study entitled ‘Moving on: Exit Interviews in a Therapeutic Community Prison’, Sullivan (2006) conducted aseries of interviews to ascertain why men might leave HMP Grendon early. It was found that many men had positive opinions of Grendon, including those who had chosen to leave or who had been sent back to their previous prison. One man claimed that: “You have to see beyond the uniform and see the person” (p.27). This comment implies that the barriers between inmates and staff are stripped away so that good quality contact canflourish (Sullivan, 2006). The ‘Moving on’ study found that there are a number of complex reasons why men choose to leave before they have finished therapy or why they might be returned to their sending establishment or voted out of their community. This article provides a synopsis of an article written by Sullivan (2007), entitled‘Seeing beyond the Uniform: Positive Views of Prison through Prisoners’ Eyes’, which analyses the remaining data of the ‘Moving on’ study and shows that prisoners tend to value and make good use of the opportunities given to them at Grendon.

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ORCID for Michelle Newberry: orcid.org/0000-0003-0085-3751

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