Corrections_Today_Summer_2025_Vol.87_No.2

What is the Twinning Project? T he Twinning Project is a sports-based inmate mentoring program aimed at changing the lives of persons in prison, which began in one of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service women’s prisons in the United Kingdom in 2018. It showed ‘positive change’ impact so quickly that as of October 2021 it had operated in 74 of the HMPPS 117 prisons in England and Wales. Oxford and Lough borough Universities have been studying the program since 2020 and found it to be successfully improving the behavior and performance of those who complete the 36-hour/12-week certificated curriculum. Twinning Projects are staffed by two or three U.K. Premier League soccer coaches from a soccer team near the prison. Overall preparation and guidance are provided by the Twinning Foundation, a charitable organization that develops, manages and coordinates ‘Projects’ between the selected prisons and soccer team

coaches. Typically, the 36-hour curriculum involves about a 60/40 split of time in a gym or recreation area verses classroom time. Its duration is flexible to be done in 12 weeks or more and from 2-hour to 3-hour sessions depending on the facility’s operational conditions, a person’s classification and projected dates of release. Bringing Twinning to the USA Along with four other members of the International Corrections and Prison Association (ICPA) Practice Transfer Advisory Committee, the Twinning Project was selected to promote worldwide. It was selected from over 70 exemplary correctional practice presentations made at the October 2021 ICPA Virtual Annual Conference. As the only U.S. member of the Task Force and a Board member of the ICPA North American Chapter it was agreed that I would take responsibility for promoting the project in the United States.

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Photo courtesy Hilton Freund MBE, Global CEO Twinning Project

Opposite page: Adobe Stock/XXX

Summer 2025 | Corrections Today

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