Applying self determination theory to motivate prisoners to exercise: The Cell Workout Workshops

This chapter presents an evaluation and observation of the Cell Workout Workshops, an innovative prison-based physical activity intervention for prisoners run by ex-prisoner, L. J. Flanders, inside a Category B adult male prison in the UK. The prison setting fails to adopt a proactive approach to improving health, and efforts to introduce ‘health promoting prisons’ by the World Health Organisation in 1995 have fallen short. Alternative strategies to promote prisoners’ well-being are clearly required, and research demonstrates that sport and exercise can play a key role in this. Structural barriers to exercise engagement in prisons are evident. It is widely known that difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff has led to a forced change in regime across some UK prisons which sees prisoners behind their cell doors for much of the day. Sport and exercise can provide an informal means of support to promote well-being on a larger scale and perhaps ease the pressure on existing prison-based healthcare providers.