The development of a subsequent system to the Real Life
programme to help prisoners find courses and
organisations they need using a design thinking
methodology
Anneke Wiltenburg
University of Amsterdam
Master thesis
Information Studies - Human Centred Multimedia
10669582
17/07/2017
Supervisor: Andre Nusselder
Second reader: Frank Nack
annekewiltenburg@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
This paper will present the design process towards a prototype of system to help the rehabilitation of prisoners in the Nether-lands. The proposed system will help prisoners find courses and organisations that will help them achieve the goals in their lives and prepare them for their return to society. This system will be subsequent to the programme of Real Life.
Author Keywords
Real Life, prisoners, digitisation, rehabilitation, design thinking
INTRODUCTION
Each year, around 30,000 ex-prisoners return to society. 47% Of these ex-prisoners go back to prison within two years of their release1. Real Life is a project initiated by Veronique Achoui (one of the founders of CHAINS International2) and further developed together with ClickF13and Changes Chances4. The direct aim of this project is that prisoners can practice 21st century skills5, digital literacy, basic ICT skills, cooperation, communication etc. The ultimate aim is to reduce rates of recidivism.
Real Life focuses on the rehabilitation of prisoners. Together with a mentor they will create a plan for their life after deten-tion based on seven chosen pathways by the prisoner. Real Life is in development to give a prisoner better insight into their problems so that they can work on a better preparation for a return to society.
1 https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/recidive/inhoud/verminderen-recidive 2http://www.chainsinternational.com 3http://www.clickf1.nl 4http://changeschances.com 5 https://www.kennisnet.nl/artikel/nieuw-model-21e-eeuwse-vaardigheden/
The current rehabilitation programmes in prison are complex and it is difficult for prisoners to find opportunities that will suit them. It is difficult for prisoners to register for courses that are being given in prison. This paper will present a design process towards a system that will help the prisoners in their rehabilitation.
The programme of Real Life ends with a personal overview for the prisoner with pathways and priorities that they need to work on. The system proposed in this paper will be subsequent to the programme of Real Life. This system will help the prisoners find the appropriate courses and organisations that will help them to achieve their goals.
Altering the rehabilitation process within prison is a complex problem. Design thinking is used to find the needs of the prisoners. Then, the iterative approach of design thinking and prototyping are being used to find a solution to this problem. RELATED WORK
Re-integration into society is an important part of recidivism. Often, re-integrating into society is perceived as a difficult process in which many hurdles have to be overcome [2, 10]. Prisoners often have trouble managing fundamental aspects of life, such as relationships, jobs, housing, care, or insurances [10]. Some consensus exists in literature, where it has been noted that problems in one or more of these pathways usually have a negative effect on the re-integration of the prisoner [12, 2, 10]. Research by Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek en Documentatiecentrum (a Dutch centre for scientific research and knowledge) indicated that 75% of the prisoners merely experience problems in one of the pathways [10]. It must be noted that only four pathways have been considered in this research, namely: identification, housing, care, and income (this can either be related to a job, unemployment benefits, or debts). Specifically, 22 % of the prisoners had problems with identification documents, 30 % had trouble finding housing,
8 % experienced problems related to health-care, and 40 per cent of the prisoners reported to have monetary issues [10]. Earlier studies examined the possible effects of a prisoner’s housing situation after its release on the probability that the prisoner is convicted of another crime and returns back to prison. Results indicate that 52% of the prisoners have a dif-ferent place to live after their time in prison compared to their housing situation prior to their time in prison [16]. Many ex-prisoners who are unable to find housing after prison become homeless and are more likely to show criminal behaviour than settled ex-prisoners [16]. Also, the stability that is closely associated with maintaining a job reduces the risk of returning to the criminal lifestyle that they are familiar with [12, 2]. Rehabilitation projects, meant to tackle those listed issues, are found to be more useful in recidivism reduction when the fol-lowing principles are incorporated in the rehabilitation process [5]:
1. Risk The risk of the individual prisoner
2. Needs The way of treatment needs to fit the characteristics of the repetition of a specific crime (risk factors)
3. Responsivity The way of treatment needs to fit the capabili-ties of of the individual prisoner
Even though such rehabilitation programmes are offered in Dutch prisons, prisoners often do not commence the pro-gramme in the first place, or fail to complete the propro-gramme. This may be due to the unwillingness of the prisoners but, oc-casionally, the rehabilitation programmes are unable to accept all applicants due to a lack of financial support [5]. The for-mer can be resolved by implementing a pre-selection process that ensures a higher completion rate. This requires care-ful assessment of every programme applicant. If a person is ’treatment-ready’ -meaning that the prisoner is expected to be sufficiently motivated and capable enough to participate in the rehabilitation programme- the chances are twice as high for the prisoner to complete the programme successfully [5]. A previous study by Barreiro-Gen and Novo-Corti in Spain has shown that prisoners are being digitally excluded compared to the outside world [1]. When the prisoners leave prison, their chances of getting employed are diminished due to the fact that they have been digitally excluded for so long. This study proposes to offer basic ICT classes where the students work collaboratively in an online environment [1].
A report from the European prison education association [3] introduced the PIPELINE project. This project is also based on the idea that the gap between life in prison and post-release should be bridged. This will reduce recidivism. They believe that introducing ICT in the prison education will help bridge this gap between prison life and post-release.
RESEARCH CONTEXT
The next section will discuss the research context after which the problem statement is presented.
Current situation
Currently, most prisons in the Netherlands work with a re-integration centre (or: RIC) [14]. During and after the project
of REALME -a project done by master students focusing on the employability skills of prisoners- , there has been col-laboration with CHAINS. This resulted in the collection of information on the current situation in prisons.
The RIC within the prisons is a big source of information. The main goal of RIC is to help the prisoners re-integrate within society. Various affairs can be arranged at RIC. A limiting aspect of RIC is its accessibility. Namely, the facility is only open during set hours and an online alternative is lacking outside these office hours as digitisation has yet to take place. RIC works with opening hours and a lot of things are not digitised. For example, enrolling in a course in prison needs to happen through the case-manager of the prisoner via paperwork.
Thus, at this moment, the majority of the managemend in-volves much paperwork. The procedure the prisoners will follow during their time in prison is often unclear. Every pris-oner gets ’KVV questions’ at the beginning of their stay in prison. KVV consists of paperwork with questions involving the rehabilitation of the prisoners. KVV is a mandatory pro-gramme for all prisoners, independent of their age, type of crime, and their personal background. Within the prison sys-tem there is a traffic light syssys-tem in which a person often starts in the red part of the prison where they have minimal rights and priviliges. If he or she behaves well and has completed the KVV training, only then he or she may proceed to the next phase.
Another important document is the ’Detention Reintegration plan’. This is a file with all the information about the prisoner. This is a physical document which comprises all the informa-tion the prison organisainforma-tion knows about the prisoner. The prison in Zaandam is willing to and looking for opportunities to improve the rehabilitation programmes within prison. A new booklet called "Goed voorbereid weer vrij - praktische in-formatie voor gedetineerden [8] has recently been put together. The aim of this booklet is to provide the prisoners with all the information they need to prepare themselves for the life after prison. This booklet is new and has not been used yet. Within the prisons, there are two types of courses the prison-ers can follow. One type of courses is called the "Terugkeer Activiteiten" (TRA). Most of the courses offered by TRA are standardised and offered in all the prisons in the Netherlands. Alongside the courses offered by TRA, various courses can be offered in each prison in the Netherlands by other organ-isations. The selection of courses can be different for each prison in the Netherlands. This selection is dependent on the connections the prison in question has with the organisations that offer the courses. The availability of these courses is very much influenced by the organisations which offer the courses. Namely, the schedule for the courses may vary on an annual basis. Therefore, it is highly variable which courses are open for enrolment and when.
Current organisation of TRA
For prisoners it is difficult to see which courses are offered and how to enrol in them. To get more insight in the current organisation of TRA and the other courses, an interview with
Michel Hazekamp was conducted. Michel Hazekamp is part of the PIW (Penitraie Inrichtings Werker) staff at the prison in Zaandam. The prison in Zaandam consists of both a Huis van Bewaring (HvB) and a prison. The people detained in the HvB are in preliminary imprisonment and did not face trial yet. In prison, a judgement has already been ruled. The prison and HvB are located on the same campus, but in accordance with policies, the people from prison and HvB do not have contact with each other. This means that TRA and other courses cannot be mixed and have to be offered separately for the two disparate groups.
In which of the various TRA activities a prisoner is obliged to participate, is determined by the case manager and the pro-bation officers. This is done according to information the probation officer has at his disposal and a list of questions the prisoners ought to fill in about, for example their housing situ-ation, in their lives. The case manager is the final determinant of the courses the prisoners needs to attend in prison. Even though the TRA activities are not officially mandatory, when a prisoner fails to attend them, privileges such as visiting hours are being eliminated.
In general, an activity of TRA takes about 10 to 12 weeks and consists of one session each week. Each course can admit around 10 participants. A course in TRA does not start until full class capacity is reached. Therefore, it is unclear when the different courses of TRA will start exactly. When a prisoner completed the course, they receive a certificate.
Besides TRA activities, the prisons also offer education and other courses that stimulate personal development. The TRA (e.g. aggression and budgeting courses) are the same in every prison throughout the Netherlands. The remaining offering of courses is dependent on, again, the connections between the organisations that offer courses and the prisons.
Registering for courses that are not part of TRA is a complex process. The organisations can put out notes on pin-up boards for the prisoners to see, after which the prisoners ought to get in touch with the case managers to register them for a course. There are different organisations that offer courses for different religious groups. If a prisoner belongs to a specific religious group, he is less likely to hear about courses from another religion, even though they might still be interesting for him. When the case manager registers the prisoner for a course, he is also responsible for informing the prisoner of the course’s start date. Additionally, it may occur that the case manager goes on a holiday, causing the prisoner to be unable to register for a course. Thus, the dependability of the prisoner on the case manager causes major problems.
The problem
To summarise, in the re-organisation of TRA and other courses, a lot of development can be done in this area. The main problem with TRA and the other courses is the lack of an efficient system for the prisoners to see the offering of the courses and activities. Also, it is difficult and time-consuming to complete registration. The entire process remains very unclear and nothing is digitised. Everything requires much paperwork and the prisoners’ achievements -with regard to
completed courses- are not recorded in a clear overview to which they have access.
The focus of the design process will be on digitising the or-ganisation of TRA and other courses in such a way that the prisoners gain better and easier access to information about the courses and programmes being offered by the prison. METHODOLOGY
To tackle the problem of re-organising TRA and other courses offered in prison, a design thinking approach is adopted. De-sign thinking is often used for Information Technology (IT) problems [6]. IT problems are often complex and, typically, it is hard to impossible to make a prediction of the end-product. Design thinking uses techniques such as framing and creating themes in order to investigate a broader problem situation, which, in turn, helps to find solutions to complex and open-ended problems [6].
Design thinking
Design thinking is an approach that roughly consists out of two different phases. A problem exploring phase and a solution exploring phase [11]. However, more detail can be given to both phases. In the first phase (i.e. exploring the problem space), the needs and constraints of the system need to be identified [7]. In this case, different user-groups (e.g. prisoners, prisons, guards, developers and organisations) are involved. Information about the needs for the different groups need to be gathered as much as possible. Information about the current management of the courses and organisations is needed to gain insight on how things are arranged at this moment. The current management of TRA and the courses as explained above, is a first step to getting to know the problem space in order to re-organise this. Next, the problem needs to be framed prior to the ideation phase [7]. The ideation takes place in the solution exploring phase. After this, prototypes need to be tested. The total design thinking process is highly iterative [7].
Co-design
Co-design is, as explained by Kankainen [9], "a design ap-proach that highlights collaboration and typically refers to an activity in which potential users are empowered to bring their ideas into the design of new solutions. It is also conceived as a collaborative knowledge sharing and creating process in which the skills experiences of various participants are brought together to reach novel solutions". Steen et al. [13], explains co-design as a collective creativity that needs to be applied across the whole design process. Co-design is explained where different experts come together (experts can be researches, de-signers, developers, potential users, et cetera) to cooperate creatively [13].
DESIGN PROCESS
In the following section, the design process is described. Sub-sequently, the progress made in each design iteration is dis-cussed thoroughly.
As explained in the section "Research context", TRA and courses in the prisons within the Netherlands are unorganised and not digitised. This results in the inability of prisoners
to fully benefit from the rehabilitation programmes that are offered to them.
After initial research on how TRA and other courses are cur-rently being offered and organised in prison (see "Research context"), it became clear that there are several projects that aim to improve the current state of affairs in progress. In foreign countries, systems have been developed for prisons to make it easier for prisoners to register for courses. An example of this is "PrisonCloud" in Belgium, developed by EboEnterprises6. PrisonCloud is a new system being set up in Belgium prisons [4]. For this system to work, every pris-oner needs to have access to a limited-connection computer in their cells. This system potentially gives the prisoners the opportunity to access information about education, renting a movie, buying supplies from the catering, weekly scheduling et cetera. In 2014 PrisonCloud was operational for the first time, but only in small numbers and not all functions were available [4]. Also, "Direct2Inmate" by CoreSystems is an-other example7. These systems mostly create a safe digital environment in which the prisoners can register for courses and programmes, buy articles from the prison-supermarket et cetera. PrisonCloud is developed so that every prisoner should get a personal (limited access) computer in their cell. From there, they should be able to register and apply for everything available in prison.
The ministry of justice department in the Netherlands is cur-rently developing a similar system for the prisoners to be able to register for the TRA courses in a digitised manner. How-ever, since they outsourced it to a commercial business, it is not possible to get insight in their work. It is expected that their prototypes will operate similarly to the projects in foreign countries, like PrisonCloud and Direct2Inmate. In addition, possibly, the system will merely target the TRA courses, as the other courses are dependent on what each individual prison facilitates.
The systems that were found to be in development in foreign countries (e.g. PrisonCloud), seemed to be lacking some vital features. According to the (expert) opinion of Veronique Achoui, these systems have some down-sides to them. They tend to focus too much on the digitisation and forget about the human aspect of interacting with prisoners. A system that only focuses on being able to register for courses, does not ensure the prisoners to actually register for the courses. Also, it does not give the prisoners a good picture of the course offering, neither does it help them identify which courses would especially be beneficial for them and why.
Taking all this into consideration, a decision was made to create a system that could follow up Real Life instead of creating a system that is only re-organising and digitising TRA and other courses.
Real Life
Real Life is a project that is currently in development to pre-pare prisoners for life outside of prison. Real Life uses four
6https://www.ebo-enterprises.com/nl/node/66
7http://coresystems.biz/wp-content/themes/core/downloads/CORE_
direct2inmate_email.pdf
phases. Phase 1 being the first 48 hours after a prisoner is released from prison, phase 2 the first three months, phase 3 the first year and the final phase 4 being the future. See figure 1. Besides the four phases, there are 17 pathways of which the prisoners will have to choose seven. In each phase and in each pathway, the prisoners will have to select priorities of which they think are most important to them. These pathways and priorities are created for the project of Real Life. See the Appendix for the complete list. For every priority they have to create a step-by-step plan on how they plan to achieve their goals and selected priorities. This will all be done in online sessions. However, the online sessions will alternate with games and offline sessions to reflect on choices made earlier in the process. The prisoners discuss this in a group and in the presence of a prison employee.
Ap pe tiz er + t he ory Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 4 Phase 3 Ap pe tiz er + t he ory Ap pe tiz er + t he ory Ap pe tiz er + t he ory As se ssme nt an d e val uat io n As se ssme nt an d e val uat io n ur e Asse ssme nt an d e val uat io n As se ssme nt an d e val uat io n Survivor Builder Creator Peer Coach
48 hours 1-3 months 1 year Future
ME Who am I? What is my situation? WORK What do I want and need? SOCIETY What can I handle? Development of person through seven pathways WORLD What can I give? IDENTITY
PERSONAL LEADERSHIP SENSE OF AGENCY SOCIAL AWARENESS
Figure 1. The four different phases of Real Life
The outcome of Real Life will be a personal overview for each phase. This overview presents the prisoners’ pathways and priorities that call for more attention. However, this is as far as Real Life goes. Thus, no link to the relevant courses or programmes offered in prison are provided, even though these courses may be very beneficial to help the prisoner make big steps in a certain pathway or priority. Additionally, introducing the prisoners to these solutions may encourage them to take action, as they perceive the solution to be within reach. A Point-Of-View (POV) of the user (i.e. the prisoner) was created to gain more insight on the prisoners’ needs. When re-leased from prison, the prisoners lack a solid plan and relevant knowledge of what things (such as accommodation, health care et cetera) they have to arrange. Real Life helps them with raising awareness on what the priorities are in their lives and their tool provides them with a step-by-step plan. However, as previously mentioned, this plan lacks the practical information of how these steps can be achieved, meaning that the tool does not refer to relevant courses and organisations. This results in the following POV:
The prisoners need to know which courses and organisations can help them in achieving their steps and priorities so that they can successfully fulfil them. Right now, the prisoners do not have enough insight in the offer of courses and organisa-tions that can help them build a stable future.
The next step in the design process is the creation of a proto-type. The POV was used to conform the needs of the prisoners in the prototype.
First prototype
The first prototype created for this was a simple paper proto-type that shows the first idea on how to make the link between the system of Real Life and the courses that are offered. The complete paper prototype can be viewed in the Appendix. The creation of this prototype is done with immediate feedback from Veronique.
The main content for the system consists of the outcome of Real Life (i.e. the pathways, priorities and steps the prisoners have selected) and the courses that can be useful for each of the pathways. From the prison of Zaandam, a booklet named ’Good voorbereid weer vrij - praktische informatie voor gedetineerden [8]’ is received. This booklet contains practical information (e.g. about accommodation, health care or work) that aims to simplify the tasks that prisoners have to manage after release. In addition to this booklet, the ’Herstelkaart -Huis van herstel in detentie en nazorg [15]’ is received. This is a booklet with many different organisations that can help the prisoners during their stay in prison and after their release from prison. These two booklets were used as the main source for the content of the system. Since the booklets mention many different organisations that can help the prisoners, the decision was made to also include organisations in the system rather than just courses.
Figure 2 shows one of the screens of the paper prototype. The screen is divided into two, on which the left side shows the priority and the steps, and the right side shows the courses and organisations that match the pathway. It will be the task of the prisoner to link a course and/or organisation to the steps in order to complete them successfully.
Figure 2. One of the screens of the paper prototype
Second prototype
The paper prototype is being worked out into a digital clickable prototype to generate better feedback. It has been decided to focus on working out one pathway for one phase. Eventually, this pathway and phase can pose as an example for all the other phases and pathways. Since the other pathways will only
differ in content (different organisations can be helpful with different pathways), using one pathway as an example would suffice. The pathway ’accommodation’ has been chosen in the first phase (1-48 hours).
The screens of the first prototype can be found in the Appendix. The screens for the prototype are created by using Sketch. Figure 3 shows the screen that gives an overview of the step-by-step plan and the list of courses and organisations. Figure 4 shows the screen that will be presented when the ’i’ button for more information about a course is clicked. Figure 5 shows how the prisoner ought to link the steps to the courses and organisations by dragging arrows.
Figure 3. Second prototype - overview page
Figure 4. Second prototype - pop-up information screen
The organisations named are based on the booklet ’Goed voor-bereid weer vrij [8]’. The course is a fictional course. The priorities (location, paying rent and utilities) of the step-by-step plan are chosen from a list of all pathways and priorities that was created by Veronique. The most important priorities were marked in blue, therefore these priorities have been cho-sen to use as an example. The complete list can be found in the Appendix.
Feedback
The second prototype was shown to Veronique. The main points of critique were that the page was cluttered with too
Figure 5. Second prototype - linking the courses and organisations
much information. She suggested that this might confuse the prisoners as well as discourage them to complete the task. Also, the arrows linking the steps and the courses and organisa-tions were unclear and cluttering. Moreover, using the arrows it is not possible to link more than one course or organisation to a step. To solve these issues, a third prototype was created. Third prototype
All the screens for the third prototype can be found in the Appendix. Instead of showing all the steps of the step-by-step plan, a drop-down menu has been created to remove the cluttering. Also, instead of working with arrows, the courses and organisations now need to be dragged and dropped to the right step. See figure 6 for the revised screen. In addition to these changes, an overview screen was added at the end so that the prisoners could easily view any pathway or priority in the phase in question from there.
Figure 6. Third prototype - linking the courses and organisations Feedback
The third prototype was shown and discussed with Veronique. Veronique (along with Alice Erens and other partners working on Real Life) provided feedback for this prototype.
The drop-down menu was considered as an improvement. However, it presented all the priorities at once. This was considered as too much tasks for the prisoner in one view and
therefore it would be preferred if the second priority was not visible until the first priority was completed. Also, it should only be possible for the prisoner to go to the next priority once he completed the first one. This ensures the prisoner to finish each priority, while dividing the work load over multiple steps. However, when at the next priority, it should be possible to go back and change things in the first priority. Additionally, a welcome- or starting-screen and some ’continue’ buttons were missing.
Fourth prototype
To solve the problem with too many priorities shown in one screen, a new screen was created in which only one prior-ity is shown at a time. The name ’step-by-step plan’ was changed into ’priorities’ to align the names with Real Life. Showing just one priority at a time on the screen creates a better overview and more space to drag several courses and/or organisations to each step. See figure 7 for an example.
Figure 7. Fourth prototype - linking the courses and organisations
Some additional pop-up screens with instructions were added to clarify that the priorities need to be completed one after the other. All the screens for the fourth prototype can be viewed in the Appendix.
Feedback
For this prototype, feedback was again provided by Veronique (and partners) and also by Nicholas Shopland from NTU. Nicholas Shopland is one of the developers working on Real Life.
The first main issue is that in this example only 4 courses and organisations were shown. It is very likely that more organisations can be linked to a pathway and therefore more organisations need to be shown on the screen.
Secondly, during the development it was suggested to add another phase to Real Life. Currently, Real Life works with four different phases (see figure 1). Since the courses are something that can only be done within prison, it does not belong to any of the four phases. Therefore, a new phase (phase 0) should be added. Phase 0 would include everything the prisoner has to do while still in prison, to prepare for his release. This means that for the phases 1 to 4, the courses do
not have to be shown (as only the courses can be done while still in prison, and, therefore, belong to phase 0).
Thirdly, to create more clarity for the prisoners on how to take action, the organisations that are shown in the system need to be given more clarity on which organisation is located within prison and which organisation is located outside of prison (but might be accessible from within prison).
Lastly, if a prisoner is only sentenced to a couple of months in prison, this system might be useful for him to find out what organisations can help him to get everything organised. How-ever, he will not have the time to go through the programme of Real Life. Therefore, this system also needs to be able to work separately from Real Life.
Besides this, some small things were noticed, like changing the names of some of the buttons.
Fifth prototype
The clickable version of the fifth prototype can be found at
https://marvelapp.com/4bg3h9d. All the screens for the fifth
prototype can be found in the Appendix.
The first change is the starting screen, which now gives an option to select if the Real Life programme is completed or not. If Real Life has not been completed, the pathways and priorities first need to be filled in in order to continue in the system. The prisoner then first has to choose seven pathways, select priorities for each pathway and select in which phases he needs to work on which pathways. When all of this has been filled in, the prisoner can continue with the system. If the prisoner has completed the Real Life programme, the pathways and priorities selected in Real Life will need to be uploaded to a database which can be used in this system. Secondly, more organisations were added to the list. The boxes were made smaller to give a better overview. The prisoner can scroll through the priorities and the list of organisations. Besides a scroll function, a button is added to mimic the scroll function. This is done to ensure the accessibility, since many prisoners have limited computer experience and not all of them are experienced with functions like scrolling. See figure 8 as an example.
Figure 8. Fifth prototype - overview of organisations
Thirdly, a phase 0 needs to be added to the four already existing phases. This prototype still gives the example for phase 1. However, since phase 0 is going to be added, courses are no longer included in the first phase. Only organisations are shown. The organisations in the dark-blue boxes are situated within prison, the ones in the light-blue boxes are accessible but not located within prison.
Feedback
For the fifth prototype, feedback was again generated with Veronique. Also, some students in the field of interaction design were asked to give feedback.
Several comments were made that there was a ’next’ button, but there was no option to go back. Also, there is no indication for the user to see how far along he is in the system. Adding a progress bar so the user can track his progress can help with this.
Besides adding a progress bar, there were comments made on the pop-up screens with instructions. An important com-ment was made that the pop-up screens were both used for instructions and to notice a mistake the user made. A distinc-tion could be made between the two different kind of pop-ups. Also, if a pop-up is noticing a mistake, more clarity could be given on where the mistake was made. A problem with an ’in-struction pop-up’, is that the in’in-structions can not be retrieved again after the pop-up is clicked away.
If the user has not done the Real Life programme and has to select his pathways and priorities in this system, it might be more useful to let the prisoners select for each priority in which phase they need to work on it instead of for each pathway. Almost every pathway will most likely come back in every phase. Additionally, an option to retrieve more information about each phase is missing. The users who still need to chose the pathways and priorities might not be aware of the definitions of each phase.
This prototype only takes into account one phase (phase 1), but more clarity is needed to display in what phase the user is currently working. Furthermore, the screen that presents the total overview of the phase is considered to have a lot of text. This overview can potentially be more comprehensible when each phase has a distinctive colour and icon.
Requirements next prototype
The next prototype has not been created within the time limit of this thesis. However, the main requirement changes for the next prototype will be summarised in this section.
First of all, a progress bar needs to be added so that the pris-oner can track his own progress in the system. Also, the ’next’ button is found to be confusing and has to be deleted com-pletely. This button should be replaced with an ’I am done’ button which only shows when it can be clicked.
Secondly, the pop-up screens need to be adapted. Two different pop-up screens are needed. A contrast has to be made between a pop-up screen with information about the next task, and a pop-up screen that shows when the prisoner made a mistake. The pop-up screen for the mistake can be placed on the screen
where the mistake was made. This will give the prisoners more information about what they have done wrong.
The selection of phases and pathways if a prisoner has not completed the Real Life programme needs some adaptation. Instead of selecting the phases for each pathway, phases need to be selected for each priority. Contrary to the screen in the current prototype that presents all the pathways and a selection for the phases (see figure 9), after the selection of a priority the prisoner needs to immediately make a choice in which phases he wants to work on it. Additionally, some explanation is necessary to explain the definition of a phase.
In general, more clarity is needed. This can be done by giving each pathway a distinctive colour and icon. This can be added in the header on each screen. This will give more clarity to the prisoner to see in which pathway he is currently working. These colours and icons can be extended towards the overview page. In this environment, the prisoner is not only reliant on text but there is colour and icons to help him interpret the overview page.
Technical requirements
Even though the main focus of this paper is the design and user interaction of the system, simultaneously a few technical requirements need to be considered.
For the technical implementation, an important notion is that the databases of both the system of Real Life and this system need to match. If a prisoner completes the Real Life pro-gramme, this data needs to be able to transfer to this system. In the back-end of the system, different authority accounts are necessary. The prison needs to have the authority to add or delete courses and organisations at any time. The organisations should be able to edit information about their own organisation, however, they should not be able to edit other organisations. Each course or organisation should be able to link themselves to one or more pathways. This way, a pathway only shows courses and organisations that are useful for this pathway.
Figure 9. Selection of phases for each pathway
DISCUSSION
This paper presented the design process and prototype for a new system that aims to improve the process that
prison-ers have to go through in order to register for rehabilitation programmes that are offered within prisons in the Netherlands. Systems that allow prisoners to enrol themselves in courses are already in development. However, these systems have some limitations. Therefore, the initial idea was to set up a system that re-organises and digitises the process of registering for TRA and other courses in prison. This new system is an improvement on the current situation as it addresses several of the prisoners’ urgent needs that had not been addressed earlier. First of all, they currently do not provide the prisoners help on selecting which courses might be helpful for them in particular. Also, as the currently available systems are accessible from within the cell of the prisoner, the guards will have less social contact with the prisoners. This may increase the difficulty of checking up on the prisoners’ progress. The emergence of a digital system may help the prisoners develop 21st century computer skills. However, if social interaction with guards or other prisoners is minimised, this might affect the social skills of prisoners, which in turn, can cause major problems in the their future.
During the course of this project, it was found that the organ-isation of TRA and other courses in prison is complex. It is difficult for prisoners to register for courses and, even though their case manager provides them with a plan in an early stage. The prisoners lack further guidance in transferring to society successfully. There are several ongoing projects for digitising the enrolment process for courses. However, the prisoners lack a tool that helps them with selecting the right courses. In addition, as they currently do not have much resources to actively invest in their life after prison and solely rely on their case manager’s plan, they might develop a lack of self-reliance skills.
The prototype developed in this paper, presents a system that will be a continuation of the Real Life programme. Real Life is a programme in development that will help prisoners to rehabilitate into society. The outcome of Real Life consists of an overview of seven pathways that are reported to be highly important to the prisoner. For each pathway, priorities are selected and a step-by-step plan is created. After this, Real Life stops. During the process of this project it was found that after the Real Life programme, the prisoners are not sufficiently stimulated to transform their steps into action. Besides the fact that it is difficult for the prisoners to register for courses, little to no help is given on selecting courses or organisations that can help them in achieving their goals created in Real Life.
For prisoners to complete their step-by-step plan created in Real Life, it was found that besides courses, also organisations were needed. There are many organisations that offer help to prisoners. Also, in order to arrange several administrative affairs or complete the step-by-step plans, the prisoners have to contact certain organisations to get their administration in order. Which organisations there are, and how they can help them with which affairs, remained unclear. The prototype proposed in this paper aims to help the prisoners with find-ing the organisation appropriate for the affair. Even though
there are many courses and organisations that the prisoners can reach out to in order to solve their problems, there is no programme that helps the prisoners find the relevant courses and organisations to achieve their goals.
The system developed in this paper will be subsequent to the programme of Real Life. The Real Life programme will alternate between online and offline sessions. Adopting this alternating style, the prisoners will receive additional moments in which they discuss and receive feedback on their choices (from both guards and other prisoners). When the prisoners adopt a system that will guide them through the different courses and organisations in a way that they obtain more control in their rehabilitation programme, the prisoners will gain better insight in what their problems are and how they can start to work on their issues. This might have considerable impact on the self-reliance of the prisoners.
Using the design thinking methodology, a POV was con-structed during this project. The POV resulted into more insight in the needs of the prisoners and changed the focus of the prototype. Rather than digitising the enrolment procedure of TRA and other courses, a link needed to be made between the programme of Real Life and the courses available. Addi-tionally, using the iterative approach of the design thinking methodology, several prototypes were built. On each of these prototypes, feedback was gathered to improve the preceding one. This lead to a revised prototype that considers the needs of the prisoners.
As literature revealed, when prisoners have basic pathways (e.g. accommodation) under control after their release, the chances of relapsing to criminal behaviour are reduced. The programme of Real Life helps prisoners to gain insight in prob-lems in their lives. This system can potentially help them to transfer these acknowledged problems into actions, by helping the prisoners gain insight into which courses and organisations they need to contact to achieve their goals and improve their personal situation.
However, this research has some limitations. Foremost, due to the time constraints, the prototype is not at a final stage. The design process for the development of this prototype should be advanced. A considerable amount of feedback was gathered from Veronique and interaction design students. During this project, it was not managed to receive feedback from guards working with prisoners in a later stage of this project. In the case that a minimal viable product is being developed in the future, this ought to be tested with prison guards as well as prisoners themselves.
CONCLUSION
Concluding this paper, a prototype is developed that aims to help prisoners find the appropriate courses and organisations to prepare them for life outside of prison. This system will subsequent the programme of Real Life, in which the problem areas of each individual prisoner are determined. If a pris-oner did not follow the programme of Real Life, he will have to select which pathways are most important to him in this system.
A design thinking methodology was used to explore the prob-lem and come up with a solution. A POV was created to establish the needs of the prisoners. Many iterations in the prototyping phase ensured improvements in the prototype. As various stakeholders were involved in the development op this prototype, this system shows much potential to be of help of in the near future.
FUTURE WORK
This paper presents a prototype of a system that will help with the rehabilitation process of prisoners. However, the last prototype presented in this paper is not a final prototype. In future work, this prototype needs to be adapted to the feedback. The aforementioned requirements for a next prototype are suggested to implement. More work is needed in the system when a prisoner did not go through the Real Life programme. This part of the system needs a precise development on how to effectively make a selection of pathways, priorities and phases. Additionally, feedback needs to be generated from people working within prison to improve the prototype. When the entire programme is completed by the prisoner, the prisoner should get a printable booklet of his priorities and how to achieve his goals. The pathways, phases and courses and organisations that are needed for these achievements should all be comprised in this booklet.
The development of this system should be done in close col-laboration with Real Life. Changes in the development of Real Life, will have considerable impact on the development of this system. A precise definition of phase 0 is required. The distinction between phase 0 and the existing four phases needs to be defined in more detail.
After one ore more following prototypes, it will be beneficial to create a minimal viable product. A minimal viable product should be tested with prisoners, to analyse if the prisoners understand the system. Preferably, testing should be done together with the testing of the Real Life programme, since this system is a continuation of Real Life.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project could not have been realised without the help of CHAINS, and in particular Veronique Achoui. Support from the prison of Zaandam is very much appreciated. Additionally, I would like to thank the University of Amsterdam. Specifi-cally my supervisor Andre Nusselder and the second reader Frank Nack.
APPENDIX
The documents belonging to the Appendix can be found at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9Gn66M7x2jURHh3Vk
R1RUI4ZDQ.
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