Rhizomatic affective spaces and the therapeutic potential of music in prison: a qualitative meta-synthesis

ABSTRACT

Research literature supports that music programmes in prisons can have a therapeutic effect in prisoners’ lives that could promote personal development and assist the process toward desistance. The authors use a meta-synthetic approach to examine 12 qualitative articles published worldwide to explore the therapeutic potential of such programmes. The findings suggest that music programmes in prison are perceived by participating prisoners as a liberating process, which encourages participation and allows for noncoercive personal development. The therapeutic potential of music programmes is located in the combination of the benefits emanating from the effect and practice of music and the creation of mental, spatial and temporal zones of free expression and those that derive from the egalitarian and nonauthoritative approach employed by the facilitators. These findings are discussed along with aspects involved in the provision of offender treatment as well as factors that affect treatment response and engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Meta-synthesis
• music
• offender treatment
• offender rehabilitation
• prison

Notes

¹ The Risk-Need-Responsivity Model (RNR) is applied in prison programmes worldwide. The basic principle behind it is risk reduction and management, and its popularity is based on the fact that it is a cost-effective method that can be applied to large groups of prisoners. The risk principle addresses the fact that offender treatments should be offered according to risk; high risk offenders should receive the most intensive treatment available compared with offenders identified as low risk. The need principle states that effective therapies must primarily address offenders’ criminogenic needs. Lastly, the responsivity principle addresses the need for offender treatment therapies to match an offender’s learning abilities (Andrews & Bonta 1998; Ward, Vess & Collie 2006; Gannon & Ward 2014).

² Palmer (1995) lists the following as aspects of successful interventions: 1) staff characteristics: their specific approach, training; 2) staff-client interaction as well as skills and ability to form a meaningful relationship; 3) offender characteristics, differences, and personality; 4) individualised approach to treatment; and 5)setting (community or prison).

³ The “Unlocking potential: a review of education in prison” review report, published May 18, 2016, highlights the need for a reform in educational practices in prisons and suggests a more individually tailored approach: “The current mechanism for funding prison education should be revised so that Governors and/or providers can design a curriculum that meets the individual needs and Personal Learning Plan of each prisoner for whom they are responsible,” granting greater autonomy to prison governors over how they run their establishments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zetta Kougiali

Zetta Kougiali is a Lecturer in Forensic Psychology at the University of East London. Her research interests lie in the processes and mechanisms of therapeutic change and in the exploration of factors that facilitate desistance and recovery.

Tomer Einat

Tomer Einat is a senior lecturer at the department of criminology in Bar Ilan University. His main research interests are men’s and women’s prisons, the psycho-social impact of prisons on prisoners and prison officers, alternatives to incarceration, and intellectual disabilities, school dropout and criminal behaviour.

Alison Liebling

Alison Liebling is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Cambridge and the Director of the Institute of Criminology’s Prisons Research Centre. Her main interests lie in the changing shape and effects of imprisonment; the role of values in criminal justice; and in the role of safety, trust and fairness in shaping the prison experience. Her books include Prisons and their Moral Performance, The Effects of Imprisonment, Legitimacy and Criminal Justice, and The Prison Officer.