Re-offending costs the government between £9.5bn and £13bn each year. Two in five adult prisoners are convicted again within a year of release. And yet arts interventions could be used to reduce re-offending and save money.

That's the conclusion of a new report published in October by New Philanthropy Capital. Entitled Unlocking Value, the report looks at three charities using art to work with prisoners and ex-offenders: Clean Break, Only Connect and Unitas. It calculates the money these charities' work saves the criminal justice system, putting forward the economic case for investment in arts charities.

The report can be downloaded from our Publications page.

In March 2011 The Arts Alliance published The Evidence Library (pdf, 1MB), a report which catalogued around 60 pieces of research carried out into the effectiveness of arts-based interventions in criminal justice settings. Submissions are now invited for proposals to for an electronic, online Evidence Library of research into arts interventions in the Criminal Justice System. The deadline for submissions is 13th January 2012.

If you are interested, please download the brief from the Publications section of our website, or email artsalliance@clinks.org.