by Pamela Taylor, Co-chair of Crime In Mind.
This article appears in our latest newsletter (Winter 2024) which can be downloaded here.
After my first ever research project – a randomised controlled trial of ECT for schizophrenia – research in prisons seemed to promise a walk in the park. I was wrong about that, but with extraordinary help and support from prison staff and prisoners, I have found that most challenges to researching in prisons can be met and managed. This is a ‘lived experience’ account that may help those thinking about doing research in prisons now.
Permissions and ethics
The first step in any research is having a question that needs answering. That will be supported by a brief, evidenced account of where current evidence falls short and, thus, the rationale for the question, followed by a preliminary research plan. It is then not too soon to start asking prison governor(s) for permission in
principle to work in their prison(s). This will mean a planned visit to talk about what you want to do and hear about what may and may not be possible. It will mean listening. As well as hearing about practicalities, it is helpful to hear what people in prison management really want to know in the area of your interest. With only one exception, years ago – a prison governor who ‘didn’t believe in research’ – I have found such meetings productive in every way. Some have led to idea building and all have led to optimising the research plans for the environment. Only then is it feasible to think about funding applications where applicable and, for all such work, how to refine the proposal in readiness for ethics approval.
Some research, even in prisons, may come within the framework of a ‘service evaluation’ or ‘audit’, with a less arduous path to approval. It is always worth having the NHS guidance1 to hand and checking with the local university or health service ethics committee, preferably getting confirmation in writing when one of these options is appropriate. In practice, though, almost anything akin to research in prison by people from outside prison will generally need approval through a special ethics process. A first challenge here is that although, in England and Wales, proposed health related research with prisoners goes through special channels, there are few people on the approval panels that have the necessary range of knowledge and experience.
Research ethics approval for all research has become a lengthy, bureaucratic process and there is probably a strong case for its review.
Here comes some lived experience!
My first prison based research required ethics approval. A four page document sufficed and prison staff and justice management hierarchy were happy to accept the decision of an independent ethics committee on that proposal, without further scrutiny. The last prison based research that I led required a series of preliminary approvals from University and catchment area Health Boards/Trusts. Then, the package for ethics approval had to contain short CVs of participating staff, the protocol, the participant information sheet, the consent form, the invitation to participate, advertisements/leaflets about the study, copies of all the questionnaires or rating schedules, a letter from the statistician … are you keeping up? – and, of course, a covering letter from the principal researcher, who was then expected to travel to the ethics committee meeting in person (some considerable distance because of its specialist nature) for the review. Probably the greatest challenge once this process was underway was to accommodate the ethics committee appetite for putting more and more into the information sheet and our appetite for keeping the sheet not only readable but at the kind of length that would keep prisoners (or any of us) engaged in reading it. In the end, approval was granted, but I return to the question – perhaps for research itself – did the four page application provide less safeguarding than the 40 page one, with its tens of pages of supplements?
In both studies prisoners could and did refuse participation, prisoners could and did fail to complete; in both studies most prisoners agreed participation and in neither study was there any evidence of prisoner harm through participation, refusal or withdrawal.
Research can transform lives. We want to support discoveries about what helps people with mental disorder who have been victims of criminal behaviour, or perpetrators of criminal behaviour, and their families, and the clinicians and others who treat them and, indeed, the wider community when its members are in contact with these problems. More effective prevention is the ideal, when this is not possible, we need more effective, evidenced interventions for recovery and restoration of safety.
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