Active citizenship in prisons

Prisoners’ Active Citizenship (PAC) was a two-year project funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ KA2-programme that ran from 2018-2020.

Active citizenship is about people’s involvement in the world around them.

It is the action of engaging with issues, ideas, people and communities. It has the potential to be an extremely powerful force for good in prisons. Engagement during a sentence can help people prepare to re-enter society, able to contribute, participate and belong.

The goal of the project was to test various active citizenship participation models in different European prisons and to develop a participation toolkit based on these experiences.

You can download the toolkit – Citizens Inside: A guide to creating active participation in prisons – here.

07 Nov 2019 | The PAC (Prisoners’ Active Citizenship) Erasmus+ EU project | Toolkit | PDF | 1.62MB

Citizens Inside: A guide to creating active participation in prisons

This toolkit was created to help people working and living in prisons to build active citizenship. It is designed to be used by prisoners, prison management and staff, education staff, organisations and people working in the voluntary sector.

To gain the benefits of active citizenship, prisons need to be hospitable to these programmes, and policy makers need to support their development. The PAC team has put together a set of policy recommendations for governments across Europe.

Read the recommendations here

The toolkit is based in part on findings from the research report Prisoners’ Active Citizenship: An insight in European prisons.

This report provides insight into existing active citizenship practices in European prisons through an overview of the existing literature about active citizenship in prison, and the results of an online survey.

Brosens et al. (2018) - PAC - An insight in European prisons (DEF)-page-001

22 Nov 2019 | Dorien Brosens, Flore Croux and Liesbeth De Donder | Report | PDF | 1.12MB

Prisoners’ Active Citizenship: An insight in European prisons

As part of the PAC (Prisoners’ Active Citizenship) Erasmus + EU project, this research report provides insight into existing active citizenship practices in European prisons through an overview of the existing literature about active citizenship in prison, and the results of an online survey.

As part of the ‘Prisoners’ Active Citizenship’ (PAC) project, nine active citizenship learning areas were set up in five European countries. This research report presents the results of the evaluation of these learning areas.

20 Dec 2019 | Dorien Brosens and Flore Croux | Report | PDF | 1.52MB

Prisoners’ Active Citizenship: Evaluation of the PAC-learning areas

As part of the ‘Prisoners’ Active Citizenship’ (PAC) project, nine active citizenship learning areas were set up in five European countries. This research report presents the results of the evaluation of these learning areas.

The toolkit was made possible by a collaboration between the following organisations, as part of the PAC (Prisoners’ Active Citizenship) Erasmus + EU project: