Evaluation of the User Voice Prison and Community Councils: Final Report

User Voice commissioned Monica Barry and Beth Weaver of the University of Strathclyde – in association with Mark Liddle, ARCS Ltd, Bethany Schmidt, University of Cambridge, and with input from Shadd Maruna, Rosie Meek, and Judy Renshaw - to assess the implementation, operation and short-term outcomes of the Council model of prisoner/service user participation/integration. These Prison and Community Councils were located in six prisons and three CRC areas across England, namely HM Prisons Durham and Northumberland and the Northumbria CRC; HM Prisons Oakwood and Birmingham and the Staffordshire and West Midlands CRC; and HM Prisons Wormwood Scrubs and Pentonville and the London CRC. These sites were at different stages of implementing Councils; some Prison Councils had only been operating for months whereas others had been operating for four or more years, and the Community Councils had been operating for between a year and five years. These differences in stages of implementation - influenced as they were by the effects of systemic, organisational and operational changes heralded by the Transforming Rehabilitation agenda - necessarily affected the progression of the Council model and at the time of writing, the ‘Through-The-Gate’ approach to offer continuity between Prison and Community council membership had not been fully implemented.