Hosted at London's Hoxtonian Gallery in 2024/2025, the exhibition Making Time: Every Prison A Creative Hub' showcased recent creative design education initiatives inside UK prisons. Co-curated by Lorraine Gamman, Professor of Design and Director, Design Against Crime Research Lab at Central Saint Martins, in collaboration with Love Print.
We work with CSM BA (Hons) Product and Industrial Design students as part of their curriculum to explore how design can be used to address the wicked problem of violence against women and girls, finding ways to protect, empower, educate and bring about change. The ‘Designs for Safer Streets’ project (2022) was sponsored and supported by Clear Channel and the 2023 project was in collaboration with Islington Borough Council.
Working with the design agency Here and inmates at HMP Isis, the Design Against Crime Research Lab created a series of posters for Black History Month 2022 featuring black role models from the worlds of music, sport, design and politics.
We have delivered practice-led and socially responsive design research for over 20 years, addressing issues from personal security and theft to youth violence, public safety, and social well-being. Our completed projects include anti-theft products such as chairs, bags, bike stands, and ATM art designed to deter thieves. These design against crime responses are recognised within the research field as impactful benchmarks.
Working with prisons in the UK and India, Makeright is an award-winning design education initiative for prison industries. It provides vocational courses as well as teaching materials to help build resilience and encourage creativity amongst participants, leading some towards crime-free lives. It has been delivering participatory design projects in prisons for over a decade.
Working in partnership with external agencies Reprezent Radio, Red Thread and the UAL Social Design Institute, Redesign Youth Futures applies a health and humanities perspective to youth crime, using data visualisation and co-creation. This approach helps national and local policymakers, strategic funders, and service providers understand the challenge in new ways, enabling them to make informed, impactful decisions.
Working in partnership with UK Public Sector Prison Industries, this project co-designed a new range of cell furniture that could be made in prison. The main purpose was to improve the safety and wellbeing of prisoners and prison staff. Our research and design approach involved collaborating with prisoners, prison staff, and designers to identify and address issues of use, misuse, and abuse of existing cell furniture, and to respond to other operational challenges in prison.
Bloqs was developed in collaboration with Southern Denmark University, adapting the Danish board game Captivated - designed to reconnect incarcerated individuals with their families - for a UK audience. DAC worked with four BA Product Design students during their industry placement year. Together with prisoners from HMP Thameside and the staff overseeing the ‘Families First’ programme, the Bloqs game was created.