Made in Prison: Understanding Knowledge Exchange, Co-design and Production of Cell Furniture with Prisoners to Reimagine Prison Industries for Safety, Well-Being and Sustainability

This chapter describes a participatory design-led project with prisoners, prison officers, prisoner estate managers and other HMPPS staff. It sought to involve “experts of experience” in the design process to ensure designs for prison furniture were “fit for purpose” in being able to address issues of misuse and abuse, as well as safety and wellbeing issues relevant to the prison environment. The project involved participants in a porous ecosystem of knowledge exchange that subsequently informed several design research stages, prior to finalisation of designs for mass production. It also involved evaluators in creating the means to test and assess the performance of design processes as well as the generation of furniture for the prison estate. This chapter reviews the strengths and pragmatic constraints in trying to utilise a collaborative design approach to aid problem-solving in prison. Ultimately, it seeks to raise questions for prison industries about strategic and collaborative design activity within criminal justice settings. It reviews how approaches to risk management within the prison estate—important for safety and security—present challenges to the implementation of design-led and co-production change agendas useful for prisons and already being successfully pioneered by other government agencies.