Evidence & Evaluation

The Koestler Awards encourage 3,500+ participants every year to continue creating. Respondents to our 2025 entrant survey reported improved self-confidence (87%); achievement in education (71%); skills or behaviours that will reduce their chances of being involved in crime after release (72%); and better relationships with prison staff (66%), and with family (62%). A study (2017) conducted by Manchester Metropolitan University in partnership with Social Justice Solutions showed that Koestler Awards entrants demonstrated statistically higher average levels of: self-reflection; hope; resilience; and wellbeing, compared to prisoners involved in arts activities but who did not enter the Awards. 

The Arts Mentoring programme provides 25-30 prison leavers each year with tools and support to continue their artistic journey post-release. According to the findings of Dr Leonidas K. Cheliotis (LSE) participants who finished mentoring were helped to “develop greater confidence in themselves and their abilities, to become more driven to achieve success, to conceptualise their present and future in ways unrelated –indeed, opposed– to crime, and to increase their expectations that future difficulties with the law could actually be avoided.” 86% of Koestler Arts mentees had desisted from reoffending 6 months after finishing the 12-months programme (based on all mentees supported from 02/2020 to 05/2023).