Design Against Recidivism

With the continuous strengthening of the legal society,crime and recidivism issues have attracted widespread attention from all walks of lives.As a creative subject,design also pays more attention to destructive social behaviors and phenomena of crime.Design against crime and recidivism is a cross-disciplinary research in the field of design science as well as criminology.It originates from the earliest design of crime prevention,but unlike crime prevention,the starting point for design against recidivism is offenders themselves,that are,behavior changes of the inmates and the correction of one's inner value.We have reasons to believe that the perpetrators are also ordinary persons and there are possibilities for them to change.Persuasive design with the goal of correcting the behavior through the conception and planning of different touch points between individuals and the external environment has its connection with correction programs in prisons.The coincidence that happened between design science and criminology is also an inevitable trend in the current interdisciplinary development of design science.The "transition program" is a process in which prisoners undergo self-recognition,selfreflection,and self-recovery in prison when the correction center/prison run the system with 5 steps including assessment,supervision,education,evaluation,and assistance of crime offenders.Prisoners in the prisons change their behavior through the influence of the external environment,form correct habits and modes of thinking,and reconstruct their inner value system,when getting over their evil past and picking up their lives again,which eventually lead them to achieve social rehabilitation,and find their own value in society.The research began with a literature review of design for crime prevention and design against recidivism.Case studies of the existed programs with “transitional” attributes in current prisons are also conducted.The current internal operating mechanism of prison correction system are clarified.Common technical means and methods,insights and explorations of the design's intervention points and opportunities were done during the research.Through field research on prisons,the internal prison guards of prisons and related individuals and the social groups of individuals released from prisons,a theoretical model of "transitional planning" under persuasive design was finally derived,and group studies targeting different types of crimes were produced.The transition programs in five dimensions including morality,emotion,social attributes,behavior,and ability were designed.Combining case study results of existing application,persuasive design concept,the transitional program and two expert's feedback in the direction of criminal psychology and information security technology,and some scholar's review in the design background.The "transition planning" theoretical model received valuable feedback during its verification.