Professor Jewkes, Research Professor in Criminology, contributed to the recent Rehabilitation by Design study, along with her School of Applied Social Science colleague Dr Hannah Thurston, calling for new prisons to provide conditions similar to living conditions in society.
Professor Jewkes also wrote in The Conversation that Government plans for new prisons was providing Britain with a once-in-a-150-years opportunity to design a new prison estate “that provides environments that are safe and secure but also sensual and stimulating, for inmates and staff”.
She would like to see: “Prisons that provide opportunities for education and meaningful work, but that also promote values such as empathy, trust and hope. If we take this opportunity, we have a real chance not only of transforming lives, but of reversing the inexorable rising tide of prisoner numbers that we have seen in the UK over the last 35 years.”
Professor Jewkes will be speaking at Australia’s University of Melbourne, where she is a visiting Honorary Professor, on 24 November.