Creative Writing and the Imagined Spaces of Imprisonment

Abstract

This chapter discusses two creative writing projects with men in HM Prisons Lewes and Durham. It examines methodological issues associated with the relevance of space and setting to participatory arts (PA) research in prison, and the imaginative writing produced by participants. Memories, relationships, and the experience of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ were all significant features of prisoners’ writing. This writing is read not simply as ‘research data’ but also as creative and cultural expression. The Lewes project involved using texts from the Mass Observation Archive as inspiration for prisoners’ poetry. Themes of creative writing, history and criminal justice are taken up in relation to the Durham project in which creative writing groups ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ Durham prison wrote ghost stories based on the prison and the history of crime and punishment in the city. These are explored in this chapter, along with a crime walk that was developed as part of the project, which serves as an example of public criminology.