A prison visiting scheme: Lessons learnt

Abstract

This article reviews a five year Probation Service project to recruit University students to visit long term prisoners in a closed prison. It identifies challenges faced by the seconded prison probation team; highlights tensions between the standpoints of prisoners, volunteers, the Prison Service and the Probation Service; suggests useful ground rules for visiting schemes and examines implications for anti-discriminatory practice. Lessons learned from the exercise inform practice at the task level - how to organise an efficient visiting scheme - and raise fundamental issues about the value base underpinning probation practice in prisons. The probation team, motivated by humanitarianism, was eager to undertake innovative work. It was not that simple. The learning proved painful. Probation officers were forced to question their use of power and authority, their priorities and their role in a system where service users [sic] were routinely disempowered and oppressed.