Christina is a prison researcher interested in the topics of love and prison reform. She is currently involved in a study about debt in prison on behalf of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), working with Dr Kate Gooch (PI) at the University of Bath. In her own research she is currently exploring alternative prison set-ups (e.g. the APAC in Brazil and Europe).

Rebooted is a charity that provides those in prison and their children the devices, training and support they need to learn. They believe that a shared learning experience helps families reconnect. In the longer term, it unlocks new opportunities and breaks the cycle of re-offending.

Release Mates is a charity comprising prison leavers in recovery from addiction. The charity provides lived experience through-the-gate and long-term mentoring services to vulnerable people leaving prison.

The Prison Phoenix Trust supports the wellbeing and rehabilitation of people in prison through mindful yoga and meditation. It supports people in more than 200 prisons and other secure establishments in the UK and Ireland and is in direct contact with around 5% of the prison population.

Prisoners Abroad is a UK-based charity that protects, supports and advocates for the health, welfare and human rights of British citizens in prison overseas and on return to the UK. They assist British citizens during their imprisonment, providing humanitarian aid, advice and emotional support, supporting them to rebuild their lives and desist from crime after release and return to the UK, and they also support their families throughout the trauma. Prisoners Abroad champions people that have been in prison overseas and their families, drawing on their experiences and insight to advocate for improvements in policy and practice.

Through vocational training opportunities, resources and environments that support rehabilitation, UpCycle help individuals rewrite their stories and reclaim their lives. UpCycle run bike maintenance programmes for at-risk and marginalised youth across the Bradford area and in seven prisons and young offenders institutions across the UK.

Glasshouse leverages theatre for social change within the Criminal Justice System. By uniting diverse communities, they use the power of creativity to conduct impactful workshops, produce thought-provoking theatre, and foster dialogue to reshape perceptions of prison and those affected. They encourage active participation in criminal justice reform by holistically engaging all impacted individuals, spanning education, the prison system and the private sector.

Prisoner Support Services offers a holistic mentoring service supporting with problem solving, and providing access to social justice. They ultimately work to empower service users to take control of their own circumstances.

Lucy Harding is a doctoral candidate exploring the experiences of educators within prisons. Lucy has previously been an education manager within a male, category B prison, and is interested in the impact of prison spaces, focusing on atmospheres. Lucy’s research utilises creative methodologies such as walking intra-views, drawing and textiles to enable teachers to share their experiences in different ways. The research outcomes will support the training of new teachers and the continuing professional and emotional development of teachers working in carceral settings. 

David Adlington-Rivers is a PhD researcher exploring hope and resilience for people in and released from prison, and the role it plays in crime desistance. David has published a self-help book, Freedom is in the Mind, about the power of hope for people in prison.

Food Matters’ aim is to create communities where healthy, sustainable, fair food is available to everyone. In particular, it runs projects that address food, well-being and mental health with disadvantaged groups including prisoners and people with previous convictions in the community, young people leaving care, people with addictions to substances, homeless people, parents of children at risk, people with mental health issues.

A major focus of Food Matters’ work is within the field of criminal justice, through the Food Matters Inside & Out programme. Food Matters takes a whole systems approach to changing food within prisons, so people in prison can make healthier choices. It works directly with prisoners, running face-to-face courses, in-cell learning and training peer supporters. Food Matters publishes a monthly health and wellbeing newsletter Her Wellbeing, which goes to all women serving custodial sentences in England (around 3,000) and is piloting His Wellbeing in a select number of men’s prisons.

Food Behind Bars is the UK’s only Registered Charity dedicated to transforming the food served in British prisons. It works with prisons on the subject of food – to improve the lives of those eating it and support the people making it. Its aim is to positively impact the health and wellbeing of prisoners, by delivering practical food-based education, promoting healthy eating and designing exciting food and drink initiatives.

Its projects and activities cover every aspect of food, cooking, eating and hospitality. Food Behind Bars works with prisons on a bespoke basis, co-designing original initiatives that enable prisons to champion wholesome, tasty and exciting food. Its work is shaped around each unique establishment and united by our philosophy of wholesome food for everyone in society.

DWRM Consultants partners with universities to support delivery of higher education in prisons and when people are released.

The Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) is an international non-profit organisation working with companies to champion fairness, equality, and effectiveness across systems of punishment and incarceration. RBIJ grew from the campaign movement on the ground and the growing need for key economic stakeholders to help drive real change. It engages, educates, and equips businesses — and their leaders — to participate in meaningful advocacy on key criminal justice issues, support policy-specific reform campaigns, and use their resources and operations to be a force for good in society.

Women in Prison is a national charity that supports women affected by the criminal justice system and campaigns to end the harm caused to women, their families and communities by imprisonment.

User Voice builds the structures that enable productive collaboration between service users and service providers in the criminal justice system. User Voice is able to do this because its work is led and delivered by people with lived experience, giving the charity the special ability to gain the trust of, access to, and insight from people within the criminal justice system.

Unlocked was established in 2016 to attract high-calibre graduate talent to work in the UK prison service and inject new ideas, insights, and energy into the rehabilitation of people in prison.

Transform Justice is a national charity working for a fair, humane, open and effective justice system. It promotes change by generating research and evidence to show how the system works and how it could be improved, and by persuading the public to support those changes and practitioners and politicians to make them.

Trailblazers Mentoring works to reduce reoffending in young adults by helping them change their attitude, thinking and behaviour through intensive mentoring, advice, advocacy and specialist support.