Supporting desistance through prison education: an exploration of the contribution of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program™ in three English prison-university partnerships

This qualitative study explored experiences of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program™ (hereafter Inside-Out). The research sampled twenty-two prison-based former Inside-Out students across three English prisons in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and an international sample of twenty-nine Inside-Out practitioners. The objectives of the research were: to interrogate the core claim of Inside-Out, that it will provide a transformative learning experience; to gain a deeper understanding of how course practitioners create a learning space for transformative learning to occur; and, to determine the extent of the transformation on U.K. Inside-Out prison-based students to establish whether there is a possible nexus between Inside-Out and desistance theory. The research found that while only fourteen of twenty-two former ‘inside’ students declared that Inside-Out had been transformative for them, there were considerable personal and developmental benefits voiced by the entire sample, following their participation on the programme. The research concluded that sustained involvement in the programme through think tanks could prolong such benefits and contribute to desistance processes.