Skip to main content
Support us
A close up of masks A close up of masks

Resources

Research and Evaluation

Journeywoman

As one of the leading organisations promoting the use of the arts in criminal justice settings, we take our commitment to research, evaluating the efficacy of our work, and disseminating good practice seriously. Many of our projects are independently researched by forensic psychologists, criminologists and applied theatre academics.

Research Papers

A selection of independent, academic research and evaluation papers exploring aspects of our work.

Act Now – a learning and evaluation report on a three-year project working with people who have experienced homelessness – 2026 View
Creative Licence – a learning evaluation report about an employability project – 2024 View
Inspiring Futures – Final Report – Arts in CJS settings – 2024 View
The Actor as Rehabilitator – an examination of the Geese’s practitioner training – Doctoral Thesis – 2023 View
The Use of Drama Based Therapy with Forensic Populations – Doctoral Thesis- 2021 View
Staging Recovery – Final Report – a recovery community project – 2020 View
Staging Recovery – “I’d probably be dead now” – a recovery community project – 2020 View
Criminal Justice – in British playwrighting and theatre practice, 1979-2017 – Doctoral Thesis – 2020 View
Staging Recovery – Changing Identities – a recovery community project – 2019 View
Scratching the Surface – well-being and hope project in women’s prison – 2018 View
The Phoenix Project – a community project with female survivors of domestic abuse – 2018 View
Working with Female Offenders – a process of desistance – a Doctoral Thesis – 2017 View
Scratching the Surface and Journey Man: A service evaluation – Working with vulnerable prisoners in the male and female prison estate – 2016 View
The Experience of Journey Woman – from the perspective of the participants – 2015 View
Write to be Heard – a prison creative writing programme – 2014 View
Demonstrating Effectiveness – competing discourses in the use and evaluation of Applied Theatre – Doctoral Theses – 2014 View
Silent Partners – a full-mask prison performance for women – 2014 View
What does the Applied Theatre Director do? – directorial intervention in theatre making for social change – Doctoral Thesis – 2013 View
Exploring Change Processes for Therapeutic Theatre – for men convicted of domestic abuse – Doctoral Thesis 2010 View
Inside Talk – a prison oracy project – 2009 View
Reconnect – a prison resettlement programme – 2008 View
Insult to Injury – a prison programme exploring violence – 2008 View
Into the Corrida – the Violent Illusion Trilogy prison residency – Doctoral Thesis vol 1 – 2008 View
Into the Corrida – the Violent Illusion Trilogy prison residency – Doctoral Thesis vol 2 – 2008 View
The use of psychodrama to enhance victim empathy in sex offenders – an evaluation – 1999 View
The Violent Illusion Trilogy – a prison project exploring violence – 1998 View

If you want to explore a wider range of research and evaluation documents on the impact of arts-based projects, programmes and interventions within the Criminal Justice System then check out the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance’s searchable database, The Evidence Library.

A close up of mask
The Evidence Library
Geese handbook

Our handbook

It’s packed full of practical exercises you can use if you’d like to use drama exercises in facilitation or groupwork, and gives you more information on our methodology.

Purchasing the handbook is a great way to help support the growth of Geese Theatre.

Find out more & purchase

Reading list

A selection of book chapters and articles written about Geese and by Geese.

Baim – Staging the Personal – a Guide to Safe and Ethical Practice (Palgrave Macmillan) View
Baim – Drama in Prisons, Blatner, A. and Wiener, D. (Eds.) Interactive and Improvisational Drama: Varieties of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2006 (New York: iUniverse) View
Baim, Brookes, Mountford (Eds) – The Geese Theatre Handbook, Waterside Press View
Balfour, Heywood and Watson – Geese Theatre 30 Years On in Performing Arts in Prisons: Creative Perspectives, Intellect, Bristol, Balfour M; Bartleet B-L; Davey L; Rynne J; Schippers H, (eds.), 2019, UK View
Balfour – The Use of Drama in Rehabilitation of Violent Male Offenders (The Edwin Mellen Press) View
Bergman and Hewish – The Violent Illusion (in Liebmann, Arts Approaches to Conflict, Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
Farrall and Mountford – The House of Four Rooms (in Thompson (Ed), Prison Theatre Practices and Perspectives, Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
Hewish – Dramatic Improvisation (Cox (Ed), Shakespeare Comes to Broadmoor, Jessica Kinglsey Publishers)
Jackson – Theatre, Education and the Making of Meanings (Manchester University Press) View
Matarasso – A Restless Art – How participation won, and why it matters (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation) View
Moore – Acting Out: Therapy for Groups (Arena)
Murphy and Watson – Bridging the theory-practice divide: how theatre can enhance social work education (Community Care, September 2025) View
Watson – The Drama of Change (in Mailout, October / November 2006)
Watson – Lift Your Mask! Geese Theatre Company in Performance (in Prentki and Preston (Eds) An Applied Theatre Reader, Routledge 2008) View
groupwork

Frequently Asked Questions

We have tried to answer as many of the questions we are regularly asked as possible. If you are a student, a researcher, a commissioner, looking for work or simply interested in finding out more, then please check out our dedicated FAQ page.

FAQs