‘An ideal tool’: prisons are using virtual reality to help people in solitary confinement – The Guardian

Williams first had the idea to bring VR into prisons five years ago. After founding Creative Acts in 2018, she said she “got real tired of hearing people come home after life sentences, having done multiple decades inside, and literally landing on a different planet”. She felt there was an urgent need for her organization to visually puncture the concrete barriers separating incarcerated people from the outside world. “As the world was changing out here, we missed it,” said Star Van Pool, Creative Acts’ program facilitator, who was incarcerated for 17 years.

So when Williams heard about a rudimentary VR program led by correctional officers in another state, she began to workshop how her organization could safely and humanely adapt this work. “I was looking for something that would bring the outside world inside. I heard that VR works on your brain as if you’ve had the experience,” Williams said. “It seemed like an ideal tool.”