Strands of activity in Justice in Education
Curating the university experience of justice-impacted students
Over 12 million people in the United Kingdom have a criminal record. Although many have had only minor interactions with the Criminal Justice System, the stigma associated with a criminal record has a long-lasting and far-reaching impact on day-to-day life. It is widely recognised that the possession of a criminal record creates yet another obstacle for people who are already experiencing barriers to access Higher Education, but the needs and indeed potential of justice-impacted students have been largely ignored by the sector.
Building on our previous work with justice-impacted students, in 2022 we secured a small pot of funding to lead a project that invited past and present university students who have lived experience of the Criminal Justice System to tell their story. We recruited participants via social media platforms and conducted structured conversations on Microsoft Teams with all who volunteered to be involved. A selection of recordings was shared with the visual minutes artist Rowan Watts who transformed spoken words into captivating graphic illustrations. Using vibrant colours, images and text, each artwork explored a theme that was either overtly or sub-textually suggested in the original conversations. Each artwork captures the past, present and future, presented simultaneously in one moment of looking; explicitly and implicitly creating connections across the life experiences and stories that make up a human being.
A Visual Minute created by Rowan Watts
Presenting the stories visually was one of the key aims of the project as we wanted to develop a community-facing dialogic experience where the viewer could piece together elements of a story and create meaning. Our storytellers were very generous in sharing their stories, and the visual minutes meant we could give something beautiful back to them. The art works were exhibited in a free-to-enter Project Lab in the National Justice Museum for four months until July 2024. The Lab was designed to draw on the power of visual storytelling to enhance understanding of the university experience of justice-impacted students. In focusing on individual narratives, the artwork sought to challenge stereotypes, dominant labels, or misrepresentations. Visitors were encouraged to interpret the stories, connect with the artwork in a way that was meaningful to them, and think about their own life experiences, challenges and successes that contributed to their story. We asked the question: we are all more than one story... what's yours? to reinforce the idea that a single label is reductive.
In July 2024 (just before the Project Lab drew to a close) we held a symposium at the National Justice Museum, attended by a variety of Higher Education professionals (academic and professional service staff), research participants and representatives from third sector organisations, to encourage connection and conversation about how Higher Education Institutions / providers can better support justice-impacted students. It was during this event that we launched the Justice in Education (JiE) Cluster which aims to inform the debate regarding students who have lived experience of the Criminal Justice System (whether personally or via those closest to them) and shift the longstanding conversations that frame these dialogues.
“Seeing part of my journey brought to life as a piece of art from the perspective of someone else was a defining reflective moment where personally difficult, complex, and emotional trauma and experiences were sensitively reimagined. It was a positive, cathartic moment for me; a reminder of an optimistic and progressive journey that I don’t always see – albeit one largely of my own making. Attending the Symposium where others were blatantly confronted with powerful artistic representations of systemic failures, seeing the thought-provoking impact of that on them, their interpretations, their compassionate acknowledgement, and their passion for the positives that can and should be celebrated from adversity, adds to the broader debate about what we want our society to be. As a person with lived experience of criminal justice and the subject of one of the artistic pieces, it was an inspirational experience to get feedback from the research, but also to witness the responses from others at the Symposium – responses which, ultimately, can only add to the undercurrent of hope that criminal and social justice may yet shift from fictitious storytelling to beneficial reality” - Quote from a research participant
Criminal Justice Conversations
Since September 2016, Dr Helena Gosling and Professor Lol Burke have led an initiative for people with lived experience of the criminal justice system to study alongside postgraduate students from LJMU. The module (Criminal Justice Conversations) works alongside criminal justice services to create opportunities for people who, ordinarily, would not meet, to learn alongside each other. This community of practice provides a safe space for people with academic, professional and lived experience of the criminal justice system to come together, as students, and work through a series of criminological issues.
The programme consists of 15 two-hour face-to-face sessions, taught across the academic year, each of which is led by a subject expert and focuses on a contemporary penological issue.
In her recently published monograph Helena says:
“It has provided more than an opportunity for students and staff to engage in a thought-provoking educational activity. It has created a discrete site of resistance between two separate but interconnected sectors that challenges the status quo.”
The initiative facilitates the production of a creative pedagogical activity that promotes compassion and commitment amongst all involved, enhancing understanding of people as well as their experiences beyond the classroom. As a result, students often share (typically) hidden experiences and stories that undermine/enhance/explain the labels they have been given or that they themselves have adopted. This insight has subsequently provided a catalyst for Helena’s work in and around the university experience of students with experience of the criminal justice system.
“The higher education sector must do more to remove unnecessary barriers to university for people with experience of the criminal justice system. To date, conversations have focused on access to higher education. This is, of course, an important issue, but so is sustained, productive and meaningful participation in university life. We need to do more to demystify ‘who’ goes to university and engage in active attempts to dismantle politicised systems of inattention which characteristically surround people with experience of the criminal justice system in higher education.”
Download a copy of Dr Helena Gosling’s monograph
Creative Collaborations: Perfume Stories
Michael O’Shaughnessy (Senior Lecturer Graphic Design and Illustration) leads an innovative research project that applies a multi-sensory approach to learning in Art and Design. Perfume Stories are a series of sensory and storytelling workshops based around olfaction and perfume. This unique methodology aims to facilitate learning and aid in the rehabilitation of prisoners at His Majesty’s Prison in the UK.
This research programme is run in collaboration with Novus - one of the biggest providers of Education in the Prison System.
This project began in 2021 when it was installed as part of the Tate Exchange Programme at Liverpool Tate. Since its pilot with prisoners at HMP Liverpool in 2022, it has been rolled out across four sites, HMP Hindley, HMP Buckley Hall, HMP Liverpool and HMP Risley.
The latest stage of Perfume Stories is managed by Michael O’Shaughnessy and delivered by Novus staff across five Prison sites in the north east (HMP Holme House, HMP Durham, HMP Northumberland, HMP Kirklevington and HMP Deerbolt).
Perfume Stories has been shortlisted at the North East Prison Group and Novus Awards in March 2024.
Find out more about Perfume Stories on Mike O'Shaughnessy's website.