How Serco achieved 9x greater prisoner engagement at Dovegate Prison using AI Video
Serco is a global provider of public services, with over 50,000 employees operating across justice, healthcare, defense, and other critical sectors in more than 20 countries. In the UK, Serco runs five prisons, which includes HMP Dovegate, a Category B facility housing up to 1,160 prisoners. The site is equipped with in-cell TVs converted into computers, enabling direct video communication with prisoners and digital delivery of essential training and updates.
We interviewed Rebecca Blockley, Senior Project Manager at Serco, to understand how Synthesia is being used to enhance operations at Dovegate Prison. From prisoner engagement to consistent communication, Serco is leveraging AI video to improve inclusivity and reduce costly errors.
The Challenge
Rebecca Blockley supports strategic communication initiatives at Dovegate. Serco needed to deliver high-impact content to a Dovegate's: prisoners – where education and engagement are essential to support rehabilitation.
Following an Ofsted inspection, Serco learned that although the prison scored highly on safety, improvements were needed on aspects of prisoner education. This included addressing:
- Low Literacy Rates: Written communications were found to be inaccessible to many prisoners, many of whom have an average reading age of 7 years old.
- Language Barriers: Non-English speakers were unable to engage with key programs.
- Low Engagement with Static Content: PDF-based messages received minimal attention.
“We struggled to get messages across clearly – especially for prisoners who couldn’t read well or didn’t speak English.” – Rebecca Blockley, Senior Project Manager, Serco
The Solution
With Synthesia, Rebecca and her team can now deliver weekly and monthly video updates covering news, incentive announcements, director messages, and behavioral campaigns. These videos, translated into multiple languages, are distributed via the prison's internal intranet and accessed directly on in-cell devices. Special campaigns, such as dog visit promotions, further support engagement and rehabilitation.
The Results
Since introducing Synthesia, Serco has seen measurable improvements in both communication effectiveness and audience reach:
- Increased video engagement: Switching to video content led to a nearly 9x increase in engagement for a prison-wide violence reduction campaign.
- Improved learning effectiveness: 55% of prisoners reported that video-based education was more effective than traditional paper-based methods.
- Inclusive communication at scale: Serco has translated videos into 7 languages, allowing diverse prisoner populations to access critical information and reducing miscommunication risks.
“Prisoner feedback on the video system has been positive; they've shared in forum meetings that the videos are useful for understanding key information.” – Rebecca Blockley, Senior Project Manager, Serco
Here are a few first-hand comments from prisoners that show how this video-based approach is making information easier to access and understand:
“The variety of videos is good – people with ADHD can follow and absorb information easier than reading it.”
“i think you need more videos to help people train, it really helps”
“Easier information access, equals easier learning #😊”
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