Match point. A muscular, tattooed man takes a deep breath before raising a hand to serve. His opponent purses his lips in concentration. The crowd is hushed. A ball is fired across the room, clips the edge of the table, and it’s game over. The crowd erupts in cheers and burly men launch themselves on to the winner.

Blokes playing ping pong might seem prosaic enough. Only on this occasion they are in jail. A prison guard watches over the hall, as the banter kicks in and other matches resume, older hands coaching newer members of the group.

“Everyone who’s here now is not getting into any trouble, and that’s because there’s an incentive,” says Axel James, 30, a prisoner at HMP High Down in Surrey for the past three years. “You get a good rapport with the officers. When they know that you are well behaved, you get more gym sessions and it can lead to other sports as well.” He attends the table tennis sessions each week.

To qualify for the weekly sessions, inmates must have a good record – no violence, drugs or abuse are tolerated. Traffic-light stamps that denote behaviour are meticulously recorded in a log book. Too many red entries and prisoners stay locked in their cells. The incentive appears to be working: violent behaviour has fallen by 83% among attendees – and demand is growing. So far 250 prisoners have passed through the programme since it started two years ago, with many on a waiting list eager to play.

The initiative is also aimed at tackling one of Britain’s most stubborn justice problems: the revolving door that puts offenders out on the streets and then sucks them back in again. According to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures, 29% of adults and 42% of young people reoffend within one year of release. But a select committee report this summer claimed recidivism can be dramatically reduced with sports-based programmes both in and after prison.

James looks forward to the sessions all week because he believes the movement and concentration required by the game allow him to mentally break free from the tedium of prison life. “There’s a lot of eye contact, you have to remain focused because it’s a quick game,” he says. “So I would say it’s an escape for prisoners.”

Coaches and volunteers from Brighton Table Tennis Club have been going to High Down every week to train the inmates as table tennis coaches. So far they have awarded 24 level 1 coaching qualifications. The group have got to know each other well, and have developed a genuine camaraderie as the prisoners and volunteers laugh and embrace one another in victory. “I’m really very fond of them,” says Sandie Clark, 72, a volunteer who has travelled the hour to High Down every Tuesday for a year. “They get scarred by the prison, but when they’re with us they remember who they are. There’s a warmth and an intimacy there which is not allowed for the rest of the week. The fact that people are interested in them gives them a bit of confidence – many of them are unsure of themselves.” She adds: “They’re going to come out with more than just a qualification – it empowers them, they can see other ways of coping with things.”

High Down prisoners and volunteers from Brighton Table Tennis Club gather in the prison gym after a session. Photograph: Alexi Phillips/HMP

Michael, 51, who used to be at HMP High Down and is now at an open prison, frequently returns on day release for the table tennis club. “At times, if they’re short staffed and there’s been incidents, people can be left in their cells for three or four days and only come out to get their food and go back to their wing,” he says. Tensions reach boiling point, so physical activities like ping pong “release that tension”, he believes. “Ping pong also brings people together across the prison buildings. You are one big community in prison even though you don’t like half of the people. We all have to mix, we all have to get on, we’re living under each other, like a powder keg situation.”

For Jack Finch, 34, the programme changed his life. He was introduced to table tennis in High Down during his two-year sentence. On release he went straight to Brighton Table Tennis Club and got a full-time coaching job in Moulsecoomb, on the outskirts of the city. “There’s nothing for these kids to do in Moulsecoomb, so when they see me, they’re happy to get involved in something. I’ve been there and it’s tough,” he says. “Crime is the last thing on my mind – I’ve got so much going on,” he says. “But I could’ve easily been tempted to go back to it.”

Rosie Meek, a psychology professor at Royal Holloway, University of London and author of the MoJ’s 2018 review of sport in prison, says that giving people a positive and alternative identity to that of an offender is a really powerful predictor to reduce reoffending. “Coaching is a valuable and meaningful way to do it,” she says. “If we can equip people with the skills once they come out of prison to become volunteers in their communities, to engage their kids, maybe, in table tennis, or even for some to work in this sector … that’s really powerful.”

The programme has proven so successful that the MoJ says it is “considering options for extending it further”. So far, the nearby women’s prison, HMP Downview, and Ford open prison in West Sussex have introduced similar schemes. The new justice secretary, Robert Buckland, welcomes the ping-pong scheme for “truly harnessing the power of sport to change lives and reduce reoffending”. He adds: “It is vital that we set offenders up with worthwhile skills such as teamwork, leadership and discipline, so they have a better chance of securing employment on release and resettling back into the community.”

Back at High Down, James believes ping pong is his ticket to a life outside jail. “I would definitely say having a sport like table tennis, having people come in, it opens doors for a lot of people. How are we supposed to be better people if we’re not given that opportunity?”

Some names have been changed