Sport, Physical Activity, and ‘Through-the-Gate’ Transition: CrossFit, Community Engagement, and Resettlement

The integration of sport-based interventions (SBIs) within custodial settings is commonplace amid wider prisoner management strategies and has become a staple of policies to support prisoner health, engagement, and education. One of the underlying assumptions associated with the implementation of SBIs in prisons is that these participatory benefits directly support rehabilitation and are automatically transferred ‘through the gate’ as part of the probation and resettlement process. However, the reality is often somewhat different. This chapter focuses on a CrossFit initiative delivered by The 180 Project, a prison and community-based, not-for-profit organisation located in the Northwest of England. The 180 Project is unique within the United Kingdom (UK) justice context on the basis that it provides a comprehensive prison-based offering around the development of mental and physical health and wellbeing, in conjunction with a dedicated ‘health-related’ resettlement pathway via its community-based services. The chapter begins by providing an overview of the project and goes on to argue how it may offer a potential blueprint in terms of the way in which a continuity of services may be achieved via ‘through-the-gate’ transitional activities which are intentionally designed to support (ex-)prisoners through the release and resettlement process.