Psychological and correctional contexts of art in prison

Being imprisoned does not just mean staying behind bars, in isolation. For inmates, time, space, monotony of everyday activities, boredom and the inability to decide about themselves also become oppressive elements of reality. Many convicts claim that the space of prison is hostile and monotonous, and that time passes slowly and is wasted. To cope with this stressful situation, prisoners undertake a variety of adaptation strategies and fill their time with various activities such as education, entertainment, work, and prohibited activities (e.g. gambling and forming informal groups). One of the basic tasks of the prison staff is to create a prison space in which serving the sentence will be of a humanitarian nature, as it allows to increase the chances of effective rehabilitation and social readaptation of prisoners. The authors claim that art activities can help modify the prison environment in such a way that it becomes a place leading to rehabilitation. In our opinion, such healing prison environment should be planned and constructed in accordance with the guidelines of scientific research and in cooperation with artists.