Green space in prison helps reduce violence

Work with offenders on a fascinating new study

Fascinating new research published last week shows that natural vegetation within prison grounds is correlated with lower levels of both violence and self-harm.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Utrecht University mapped the percentage of green space – trees, lawns and shrubbery – within prisons in England and Wales and compared it with incidents of self-harm, prisoner assaults on staff and violence between prisoners.

Taking account of variables such as the age of prisons, their security level, population density, and whether they accommodated men, women or young offenders, the researchers found prisons with a higher presence of green space had lower levels of self-harm, and lower levels of assaults on staff and between prisoners.

There was already existing qualitative research that contact with nature influences prisoner well-being. In 2019 Coventry University published an evaluation of a prison garden project, Unlocking Nature, delivered by the Conservation Foundation in London’s famous Wandsworth Prison. The idea here was to develop a number of new green spaces to transform the view from prison cells, again with the aspiration of reducing symptoms of poor mental health and stress as well as violent aggression and antisocial behaviour.

In addition to the mental health and well-being gains, the prisoners who participated reported pride and increased self-esteem from being engaged in such a constructive project. Those involved in looking after the chickens maintaining the beehives were particularly positive about their experience. There were again a number of positive spin-offs including building better relationships between prisoners and prison staff as well as some individuals gaining formal qualifications. The only criticism of the project was that a number of prisoners and staff felt that, given the dilapidated state of the 166-year-old prison, the money invested in the garden projects might have been better spent on more mundane repairs.

The new study, though, is based on a more data-driven, quantitative research approach which used geographic information systems to map greenspace within prison perimeters. These econometric estimations confirm that greenspace fosters prisoner well-being, in that there are lower levels of self-harm and violence in prisons with more greenspace. These relationships are statistically robust, and they persisted when the researchers controlled for the other facts commonly correlated with prison violence –prison size, type, age, and level of crowding. The study’s findings are important both because they extend our understanding of well-being in custodial environments and because they have the potential to significantly influence future prison design. The article also provides important new insights demonstrating links between greenspace and well-being that have significance for other institutional environments such as hospitals (especially psychiatric ones) and residential facilities.

The timing of the report is important with levels of violence and self-harm in prisons in England and Wales rising substantially over the last five years. The latest set of official Ministry of Justice Safety in Custody statistics published last month found that the number of self-harm incidents in the three months to September 2020 increased by 5% in male establishments compared with the previous three months and increased by 24% in female establishments.

Given that the government is embarking on a prison-building programme, it would be good to know whether they are planning green spaces within these new institutions.

If you are fascinated by this study, you can read the full research in the latest edition of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers here.