Rideout (Creative Arts for Rehabilitation) was established in 1999 in order to develop innovative, arts-based approaches to working with prisoners and staff within U.K. prisons. We've retained a special emphasis on working in the Midlands where the company is based. The prisons where we've worked most extensively are HMP & YOI Swinfen Hall and HMP Dovegate, both of which have hosted a number of programmes.

Rideout's function is to develop and run programmes that explore the impact of criminal behaviour on offenders, their families and others. Primarily this is achieved by working with offenders themselves, looking at the causes and consequences of the actions that have led them to prison. The programmes themselves vary from the more recreational, usually drama-based activities leading to performance, to programmes that analyse and challenge offending behaviour. Within the latter, the personal histories of the inmate are discussed and drama methodologies are used to explore the secret archaeology of the offending behaviour: what factors led to the criminal action, could different decisions have been taken? Who suffers?

Underlying all this work is the notion that individuals have the capacity to respond in different ways to pressures from friends, families or environment. It is our assertion that crime is not always an inevitable consequence of personal difficulties. Nor is it validated as a career option. Other strategies are always available. To access and understand these interventionist strategies however, often requires the offender to use imagination and to envision alternative behaviours. The creative and performing arts have a particular appropriateness therefore in offering a language within which these arguments and speculations can take place.