Opening museums to offenders

Though being among the best representatives of western culture, museums are often unknown to or hardly visited by vulnerable audiences. This programme is a pilot initiative designed with the intent to fill in the gap between those audiences, more specifically inmates, and museums. Museums can supply powerful means for the education of offenders, which is the very reason why prisons exist. The programme will be developed in a high security prison, a place where initiatives of this kind are still infrequent. A group of twenty inmates, selected on a voluntary basis and according to the strict prison rules, will take part in a lesson on some of Bernini’s works shown at Galleria Borghese in Rome, meaningful examples or achievement in Italian art. The lesson will focus on the myths represented in the sculptures that will be used for a reflection on art and the archetypes of life. Evaluation and assessment will be an important part of the whole programme because they will address several issues: from the respondents’ opinions and knowledge of museums to their learning from the class, to the monitoring of their opinions, perceptions and knowledge throughout the lesson. All evaluation activities will be anonymous and done by means of structured questionnaires. The results will be used in order to amend, if necessary, both the general structure of the programme, the class topic and the tools. The final version will be made available to all those who would like to replicate the programme either with the same kind of audience or with the other kind of vulnerable groups.