Since the 1920s, when wardens whipped out band tunes to quell skirmishes in chow halls, music has played its way through barbed wire fences and into many a lonely prison cell. It found its way to the fingers of Jewish women in an orchestra at Auschwitz who were forced to serenade Nazi commandants, as well as other prisoners in work gangs. It crooned its way to Folsom State Prison through Johnny Cash’s gravelly blues. And today classical strains waft across jail yards in India, while Venezuelan convicts learn how to play Beethoven, and Maine prisoners pick away at guitars to Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.”
Music speaks to every human emotion. It rouses the inklings of love, soothes agitated spirits, and plays the companion to the suffering soul. As the American jazz composer Michael Torke put it, “Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass?”
In the world of corrections, psychotherapy and music often converge, as many corrections experts discover music to be a helpful tool in rehabilitation. Others argue that using the arts to treat prisoners is little more than decorating a swamp with flowers. But when the double bar line has descended upon Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus,” there are few who can dispute that music has power, even in a world of concrete and gray.
Human Again
“In prison you have a very limited access to music,” said Minnesota ex-prisoner Daniel Wickham. “There’s no Internet, there’s no iTunes, there’s no CDs. You may get a radio station, and usually you’re under so much concrete and metal that, a lot of times, you can’t even get a radio station.”
Still, music usually makes its way into prisons around the world.
Audio:
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“We're Blessed,” from My Life, 10th anniversary Music in Prisons compilation CD, 2005
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“Devotion,” from Band 2 Rights, HMP Risley, 2009
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“The Sandman” (sung by Dan) from Locked in the Game, HMP Wandsworth, 2008. Said Dan after the project: "I got the chance to express myself creatively and have some time to be 'free.' It has given me the time to think about what to do with music in the future. I wish it could go on. . . ."
Over the past 15 years, England’s Music in Prisons program has introduced musical training—from guitar classes to opera performances—to almost 1,800 prisoners in more than 50 prisons. Prisoner participants dabble in a variety of styles—reggae, country, blues, and hip-hop—and have an opportunity to compose their own pieces. At the end of each five-day seminar, prisoners perform in front of an audience made up of other prisoners and those from the free world.
In 2008, CambridgeUniversity released a study, Beats & Bars, which analyzed the successes of the program. Of the 71 prisoners who participated in the evaluation, a majority indicated that the music classes boosted their confidence, gave them skills to foster better relationships—with fellow prisoners, corrections staff, and family members—and motivated them to pursue other arts and educational opportunities.
Over 70 percent said that the music project made them feel more positively about themselves. Said Johnny from HMP (Her Majesty’s Prison) Wayland, “I feel human again.”
Bob from HMP Edmunds Hill said, “[The project] made me realize that I still have a lot to give in life—my whole outlook has changed.”
Classes motivated some participants to begin reflecting on family relationships. Fred from HMP Manchester said that “on a personal level it’s let me give something special to my son.” A 1998 study published in the American Sociological Review indicated that prisoners with positive family relationships were less likely to re-offend once released.
As some of the prisoners in the program developed positive relationships with their instructors, interactions with other authority figures seemed to improve as well. After taking the class, a known trouble-maker named Ian calmed considerably.
“Of all the men who took part, the most significant change was in Ian,” said one of the correctional officers. “Before, I used to spend most of my time fighting him on the wings, but he really turned a corner after the project. He did have lots of adjudications in the past, but none after the project.”
