‘If I’d known, I might not have taken a life’: can prisoners defuse their own disputes?

At Dartmoor prison, inmates are being trained in mediation – a scheme experts hope will tackle the nationwide surge in violence

Behind the forbidding, grey stone walls of Dartmoor prison, past a towering fence topped with barbed wire, a circle of prisoners has closed around two figures engaged in a dispute over the drug spice. Something unusual is happening, however. Instead of violence, perspectives are being traded. Slowly, a resolution is reached, even a degree of begrudging empathy. The observers sit, transfixed, as the role-play ends. “If I’d known this years back, I might not have taken a man’s life,” reflects one later.

Across England and Wales, violence behind bars is surging. In the 12 months to last June, there were 27,193 assaults – a record high, up 14% on the previous year. Just last week, a prisoner was stabbed to death at Wormwood Scrubs. Meanwhile, there has been a 26% cut in frontline staff over the past seven years; assaults on them have risen 88% in the past two. Could Dartmoor, home to high-risk inmates, including sex offenders and violent criminals, have discovered a way to break the cycle?

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from Voluntary Sector Network | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2G3nf5w