Research & Reports

At Koestler Arts, we use research and reports to inform the work that we do encouraging participation in the arts in prisons. Evaluation is built-in to all our projects and events and is essential for making sure our work helps prisoners and individuals in secure settings.

On this page, you will find a selection of publications which we have produced alongside academic partners in recent years, as well as in-house evaluations and impact statements showing the effectiveness of art in prisons.

Each Koestler Awards entrant is asked to complete monitoring and evaluation forms so we can listen and respond to their views on how we can better support participation in the arts in prisons and beyond.

Our steering groups, trustees, staff, and volunteers include people with lived experience of the criminal justice system.

Please take a look at the documents below to read more about our projects.

We regret that, because of the high volume of enquiries we receive and our small staff team, we cannot respond to requests for help with dissertations. We invite students interested in how the arts can benefit people in prison and other secure settings to read the evaluations available to download on our research page and to visit the NCJAA Evidence Library.