Steve Graham

The prison as an institution in society is a complex and multi layered set of social relations
confined to specific geographical places. Working with prisoners in these circumstances is a
necessary and important task as they are nearly all released back into society. This highlights
not only issues of the causes of crime and the nature of punishment, but also the importance
of understanding and supporting the processes of desistance (of ceasing offending), pro-social
change and community reintegration in that setting. The task of corrections is to maintain the
safe order and security of the prison, reduce risk and recidivism, and support pro-social
change in prisoners. It is the latter part which is difficult as corrections broadly applies
mechanisms of security, but often fails to identify suitable individual solutions.
The research explores the use and impact of community service activities as a means of
assisting desistance from crime for both minimum enclosed and minimum open prisoners in
the custody of Tasmania Prison Service. In the past, community service has been used in
many jurisdictions as a low level reintegration mechanism, seeing it as meeting the public or
local community needs. This research examines the impact and benefits to individual
prisoners, the agencies and stakeholders they are assisting, and assesses the efficacy of
community service activities to promote desistance and reintegration. Fourteen different
prisoner community service activities are considered here – for the first time in the public
domain.
The findings of this study show that community service activities have a positive impact at a
number of levels: on the staff and volunteers in the agencies, the communities who are
recipients and beneficiaries of community service activities and, ultimately, the prisoners
who develop their social capital, showcase their existing human capital and access real
opportunities and supports for reintegration. This framework is developed in the context of
Tasmania, and yet has relevance and utility to be tailored for other jurisdictions.

This post is from Steve Graham, a Reintegration Consultant, Tasmania Prison Service, in Australia. Steve undertook the research summarised here in 2012 as part of his Masters of Criminology with the University of Tasmania, while concurrently working in the prison.

This Working Paper explains and contextualises 'community service activities' within prison, and introduces an evaluator tool. First, these activities are defined and positioned against a backdrop of academic literature and real-world practices in supporting desistance from crime and reintegration. Following this, a rationale and overview of the evaluator tool are provided. This working paper provides an online tool to score current prison programs providing giving back opportunities for prisoners and suggests measures to increase their effectiveness.