Welcome to the Creative Prisons Project

The aim of the Creative Prisons Project is to encourage every prison to become a source of creativity, worldwide. Concurrently, we aim to compile evidence that engaging incarcerated people in creative work results in improved behavior and benefits society as well as individuals.

Specifically, we aim to engage more people in prison in producing creative works through arts-in-corrections educational programs, to protect their intellectual property, and to facilitate ways to share their works with the public. This site describes the initiatives designed to achieve this aim, to use creativity to humanize prisons and society, and to promote the eradication of poverty and racism.

We also aim to build and advance the professional field of arts in corrections worldwide. To date, key advances include launching a professional and scholarly journal, the International Journal for Creativity Inside and collaborating with the International Justice Arts Network to become an association of professionals and educators engaged in supporting the arts in prison, worldwide.

A proposed framework for a national carceral creativity infrastructure addressing supply and demand is presented in the book, Prisons of Creativity (Routledge, 2025).

If you would like to stay in touch concerning creativity in prisons, please provide your contact information here. Thank you.