Should Canada Use Music And Art To Rehabilitate Prisoners

Topic: Should Canada use music and art to rehabilitate prisoners?

Opening/Attention:

- Arts bodies with expertise in criminal justice are facing closure.
- The question is: "Should Canada use music and art to rehabilitate prisoners?”
- Many studies and research have been gone, and they found out that art have a strong affect to the prisoner's lives, especially in helping them move away from crime.
- Therefore, my answer is yes.

Spoken Link: To beginning with, let hear the feeling and the thinking of prisoner who has experienced this kind of rehabilitation.

Emotion/Story:
- “How does the art support a positive life? It gave me an aim in life!”
- Rehabilitation through the art is a powerful thing. It makes you think differently.
- If you
keep thinking how you always start, then you are going to keep doing what you've always done.
- “Taking part in music workshops in prison was life changing.”
- Participant started to make positive choices for himself, and it began to change the way he think in a very deep way.
- Art allows you to think differently, so you can behave differently, so you can get different result.
- This is actually the definition of what rehabilitation mean, is it not?

Spoken Link: Now, move to some positive impacts of creative interventions for offenders.

Facts, data, expert opinion:
a) Studies were conducted by comparison Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) participants group and another group. They all matched on age, ethnicity, type of crime, date of entry into prison, time served and earliest release date. The studies concluded that:
- More men in the RTA group completed educational degrees.
b) Another two groups, matched like the example above, and the result was:
- The longer the inmate was in the program, the fewer violations they committed, and a longer period of participation predicted a higher level of social responsibility.
- They are more dependable, more socially mature and, sacrifice individual needs for the welfare of a group more than control participants.
c) One project in Birmingham, led by the local youth offending team, uses music to engage young offenders.
- Ian Clarke, who runs the project, says: "Young people taking part in arts projects gain a wealth of personal and social development; it provides a huge boost to their self-efficacy while [they learn] many new transferable skills.
Young people can often become inspired and find new pathways open to them which they never knew existed."

Spoken Link: On the other hand, there are so many opposite opinion.

“Rebuttal”:
a) Wasting money on arts projects is senseless.
- The main point of prison punishment is rehabilitation then gives back to the society.
- Art education can change the prisoner, such as improved self-awareness, communications skills and developing a positive sense of self.
- The Reimagining Futures research shows that it relates to the process of desistance from crime.
b) We should develop resettlement programs, which can help them get a job.
- A plan have a variety of educational activities, including are education, will dramatically improve the success of resettlement program.
- In addition, the offender might well find employment in an arts-related industry.
c) We should cuts to arts budgets, and increase focus on job-focused training.
- That's mean art classes in prison education departments, and many long-established arts charities with expertise in criminal justice settings, are facing
closure.
- This risks the irretrievable loss of years of accumulated professional experience.
Spoken Link: To sum up.

Closing/Call to Action:
- This is not a simple luxury entertainments, this is rehabilitation.
- In those classes, they are just anything they want to be.
- What is the point of cutting their chance, while what we want is create a crime-free future?
- Brian Fischer said: "Given an opportunity, inmates can, and will, step forward on their own and make significant changes in their
lives."