Art in prison - is it worth it?

From what we hear in the media, art in the criminal justice system is just a waste of time, space and the tax-payers' money. I'll put my hand up now - I'm guilty of thinking this (as are many other people in today's world) but we couldn't be more wrong. I'm a big fan of the arts - always have been - but for some reason I could never get my head round how doing something creative would help people in prisons.

The chairman of Arts Alliance (the company that brings art workshops to offenders) spoke passionately, pointing out that when any of us goes through a strong emotion, be it love, loss or hurt, we use creativity as an outlet for the feelings. It's therapeutic and helps us to vent the emotion without hurting anyone else.

When its put like that, arts in prisons seems like a very good idea. He went on to explain how re-offending rates are significantly reduced when the offender is involved in a creative project and how much people benefit from being involved in such work.

The talk definitely opened my eyes to a whole new world of career possibilities too. Although most of the speakers said how hard the job is to get into, they all seemed so enthused and excited about the work they were doing, it made the effort they had to put in seem completely worthwhile.

My views on the prison system were completely changed by this talk. It's so easy to get caught up in the world of the media and put down anything that uses tax-payers' money as a waste of time, but this really isn't. If you think how small the arts' side of education is in prisons (estimated at less that 5%) it's not worth all the aggravation the people that run the company get from the public. We're always led to think that an offender is a stereotype and can forget that they're real people. Everyone deserves the opportunity to express themselves, and I can't stress enough how glad I am that there are organisations out there that are fighting to give people that chance.

Sophie Moyse