How can prisons adapt to the climate and nature crises?

The climate and nature crises are having an increasingly negative impact on people in prison.

The prison system is not built to withstand increasingly intense heatwaves and floods, to provide access to green spaces, or to develop skills that set people up for green jobs.

We explored these issues in detail in our recent Everyone’s Environment research briefing. Earlier this year, we were able to bring together criminal justice charities and funders to discuss our findings with us and people with lived experience.

Our discussion covered:

• some of the positive examples of environmental projects helping people in prison.
• the barriers to spreading best practice, from fragmentation to lack government interest.
• recommendations for change, such as sharing evidence and agreeing minimum standards.

Positive projects helping people in prison

We heard about projects happening across the UK which broadly fall into four categories:

Improving the evidence base: This includes academic fields such as green criminology and specific research projects such as:

• The Victorian prisons project which looks at the implications of historic facilities still being in use.
• Edinburgh University’s research on the environmental conditions of detention.
• Doing Porridge, which researches women’s experience of food in prison.

Increasing access to green spaces and blue spaces (natural spaces including water features): There are several projects delivering horticulture and outdoors activities in specific prisons such as:

• the CAMEO Unit at HMP Foston Hall: offering therapeutic activities for women in prison with personality disorders to prevent re-offending, which includes increasing time spent in nature.
• Greener On the Outside for Prisons: a programme that promotes wellbeing and mental health through gardening, including creating ponds and enabling ‘walk and talk’ counselling sessions.
• Hope Street: a residential facility for women leaving prison or undertaking community service to live with their children, co-designed by women with lived experience of trauma. The building includes plenty of relaxing green spaces.
• The Orchard Project: a charity helping to deliver the Ministry of Justice’s goal of having an orchard in every prison in England and Wales.

Improving access to nutritional food: Projects such as Food Behind Bars (which delivers culinary training to people in prison) and Food Matters (which helps women in prison improve their diet) can help improve the often poor nutritional quality of food provided in prison, which is in danger of worsening as climate change impacts our food systems.

Increasing access to green skills and job opportunities: Green skills training and opportunities, such as those provided by Groundwork and Recycling Lives, are supporting people in prison through the green transition.

Barriers to further impact

What’s preventing the system from building on these examples of best practice? People felt that:

• The prison system is highly fragmented. This means that a great initiative in one prison can’t easily be spread to another.
• Other areas of the criminal justice system present obstacles. For example, training programmes may be tailored to local job opportunities, but prisoners may be transferred between prisons in different areas before they finish their training course.
• These specific issues are low on the government’s agenda, and it does not feel easy to influence relevant policy.
• Some initiatives have the wrong focus, with too much emphasis on supporting people in prison to reduce their carbon footprint once they leave. These programmes often fail to address the lack of individual autonomy people in prison are dealing with, and the fact that the climate crisis is understandably low on their personal priority list.

Overcoming barriers

How can the sector overcome these barriers? Attendees felt that what was needed was:

• A formal way to share evidence and learning about what works.
• Agreement on minimum standards across prisons, for example on improving heating and cooling systems. It was felt this was important to avoid ‘greenwashing’ (making superficial environmental changes for PR reasons, without real change).
• A review of education and training opportunities for people in prison, so these align with the changing needs of the green economy.
• More emphasis on listening to the views of people in prison on this topic, to understand how environmental action can best align with their priorities.

Conclusion

The evidence from our briefing paper and this session is clear that the prisons system cannot ignore environmental issues.

The challenges that the system faces are complex, but starting by listening to people in prison and their experiences is an important first step.