̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - prison

‘I bottle it up’: the emotions of solitary confinement

fpjl2 — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 10:27:22 +0000

In my previous research on emotions in prison, I have been struck by the prevalence of suppression among prisoners. I distinctly recall one participant saying:

"I bottle it up, bottle it up, bottle it up until it spills over and then I talk about what’s on the surface but never actually get in too deep. And then you skim the top away and then you go again. And then when it runs over, you do the same thing, but you never actually empty that bottle."

Prisoners find limited channels for releasing such pent-up emotions: some of which are ‘prosocial’ (such as engaging with arts programmes and finding mentors), but some are far more destructive (e.g. self-harm and fighting with other prisoners).

Because the process of suppressing and releasing emotions seems closely tied to the social world of the prison, I want to find out what happens to prisoners’ emotions in more extreme forms isolation.

̽��ֱ��use of segregation units in England and Wales – where prisoners spend 23 hours a day in solitude – is increasingly being scrutinized by policy makers and academics. However, we know surprisingly little about the affective dimensions of these closed spaces, and how they affect prisoners over time.

Is solitary confinement just bad practice?

Interestingly, while there is a spate of research on the oppressive effects of segregation – which some have described as a form of punishment close to torture – the experience of solitary confinement is not uniform.

In fact, some prisoners have quite transformative experiences, even if they are in the minority. Others seek out isolation as an escape from retributive violence and accrued debts. ̽��ֱ��importance of this fact is not to advocate for isolation, but rather to highlight that we don’t exactly understand how segregation plays a role in the individual change process.

Looking for emotions

There’s been a rejuvenation of interest in researching emotions, and increasing recognition that emotions are essential to human behaviour. It’s surprising that emotions have typically been left out of studies of imprisonment and segregation because they are such ‘charged’ environments, where intense feelings are often on display. Importantly, intense does not always translate to unanimously ‘negative’ emotions either. In fact, my previous research has alerted me to the importance of expressions of joy, care and serenity in the prisoner experience.

This study will try to understand the specific ways prisoners manage their emotions and the prevalence of different ‘feeling states’. Looking for emotions can help us learn more about how prisoners locate avenues for change. While change is hardly a linear process, recent strands of research show that emotions play an essential role in shaping social life and the dynamics of why offenders desist from crime.

I want to explore emotions among both male and female prisoners. Though women only make up a small part of the penal estate (around 5 per cent) their experiences of segregation are rarely spotlighted. By directly exploring two segregation units I can not only learn more about gender differences, but also about the more ‘universal’ experiences of isolation.

Changes over time

Much of the research on segregation has failed to measure changes over time. But there may be a high rate of variability over time and first impressions are not always enduring. For example: initial experiences of shock can, in some cases, morph into constructive processes of reflection and clarity of thought.

Through repeated discussions with, and observations of prisoners, I hope to examine how prisoners develop (or get ‘stuck’). This will include understanding how cycles of infractions in segregation can amplify violence and cycles of despair. But will also attempt to explain triumphs as well as tragedies, and the possibilities for transformation, healing and locating hope.

Ben is an Economic & Social Research Council New Investigator at the Prisons Research Centre, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. He can be found on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ben_Laws

New research will set out to examine the emotional world of solitary confinement. Dr Ben Laws from the Institute of Criminology discusses his project, and how the experience of ‘deep confinement’ might shape the lives of prisoners.

We know surprisingly little about the affective dimensions of these closed spaces

Ben Laws

Emily Shullaw

Illustration of solitary confinement

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Yes

Muslims leaving prison talk about the layers of their lives

amb206 — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 07:55:01 +0000

Dr Ryan Williams has become accustomed to uncomfortable moments. His research into the lived experiences of people in the criminal justice system (CJS) has taken him into high-security prisons to interview people convicted of serious crimes, and to East London to speak to recently released prisoners. All his interviewees were Muslim.

He describes this area of study as highly problematic: “I was working with people who often feel doubly marginalised – as individuals with a criminal record and seeking to rebuild their lives, and as Muslims living in British society and having to fight against stereotypes. You run the risk of bringing genuine harm to people by failing to reflect their complex life realities.”

Williams is based at Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies and at the ̽��ֱ�� of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. An interest in Islam and society took him into a domain usually studied by criminologists. His interviews explored the journeys, values and struggles of people caught up in the CJS. They took place in prisons (including segregation units), probation offices, cafés, mosques and ‘chicken shops’.

In 2017, an independent review by the Rt Hon David Lammy put race equality in the spotlight by highlighting a rise in the proportion of BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) young offenders in custody: from 25% in 2006 to 41% in 2016. Lammy stated that his “review clearly shows BAME individuals still face bias – including overt discrimination – in parts of the justice system”.

̽��ֱ��same review drew attention to the over-representation of Muslims in the CJS. Between 2002 and 2016, the proportion of Muslims in the prison population doubled.

“ ̽��ֱ��higher up the CJS you go, the greater the proportion of people identifying as Muslim,” says Williams. “More than 40% of the prisoners in the high-security prison that I was working in were Muslim.”

While the over-representation of Muslims in the CJS forms the backdrop to Williams’ research, his work looks not at the causes of crime but at the experiences of offenders as they serve their sentences and reflect on their lives. “By asking questions around belonging and how people can lead a good life, we begin to see what might help them in the future,” he says.

Rapport with participants was key. He says: “In effect, they interviewed me to ensure that I wouldn’t reinforce a ‘one-dimensional’ view of them as Muslims.”

As one interviewee remarked: “There’s more to life than the little bits that you read in the paper.” ̽��ֱ��interviewee had observed other people taking an interest in Muslims in prison: “They’re all asking the same questions” about discrimination and radicalisation, and “[I’m] just standing there thinking, like, ‘is that all you want to know?”’

Through his interviews, Williams came to learn how difficult it is for people to put their finger on inequality and discrimination. It was often indirect, found in everyday examples like (says one interviewee) being refused a toilet roll by a member of staff but seeing a white prisoner acquire one with ease. For white Muslim converts, there was a sense that being a Muslim was incompatible with being British – they were seen as ‘traitors’ to their country, reinforcing the view that Islam is a ‘foreign’ religion.

For one interviewee, the rise of Islamophobia was both tragic and laughable. He observed: “It’s really sad. People are scared of Muslims now and it makes me laugh because I think to myself, ‘Hang on a minute, what are you scared of?’” He also pointed out: “Everybody knows a Muslim. You probably work with one. You might live next door to one. Your neighbour’s cool. Your work colleague’s cool.”

Since 9/11, and more so in the wake of recent attacks in London, the term Muslim has become linked with negative associations.

“‘Muslim’ is a badge applied to offenders in a way that masks other aspects of their identity – for example their roles as sons, brothers and fathers. For much of the popular media, it’s a blunt term that hints heavily at terrorism,” says Williams.

Through guided conversations, Williams encouraged his interviewees to talk about the things that meant most to them, sharing their feelings about family, community and society. He explains: “Broadly speaking, my work is about people’s lives as a moral journey – one marked by mistakes and struggle – and how this connects to belonging and citizenship in an everyday sense.”

̽��ֱ��project was sparked by a conversation that Williams had four years ago with a Muslim offender of Pakistani heritage who’d been brought up in the UK. “He said that he felt so discriminated against that he felt he couldn’t live here any longer. To me, that was shocking,” says Williams.

“It made me wonder how the CJS might serve to help people feel like citizens and rebuild their lives. What if we brought the end goal of citizenship into view, rather than focusing exclusively on risk to the public? How would this change how people see themselves and how others see them?”

Williams’ interviews revealed that, for many, learning to be a good Muslim was also tied with being a better citizen, and each had their own way of going about this. “For one person, day-to-day practices of prayer kept them away from crime. For another, for whom crime was less of a struggle, practising zakat (charity) by providing aid to the Grenfell Tower survivors enabled him to fulfil a need to contribute to society,” he says.

He interviewed 44 Muslim men, sometimes interviewing them more than once, and triangulated his data with conversations with prison and probation staff.

“My approach was experiential-based – qualitative rather than quantitative. I didn’t have a set of boxes to fill in with numbers. I used one standard survey tool from research on desistance from crime, but I found it removed richness and detail from people’s complex stories. Participants welcomed the chance to reflect more deeply on their lives.”

An individual’s faith journey, argues Williams, cannot be separated from the complex reality they find themselves in. Faith is always interpreted and filtered through our experiences and can help to construe a positive view of what it means to live a life worth living. As one participant observed: “I want to actually do some things now, like goodness, like volunteering, helping people out, helping the vulnerable… God loves that.”

Williams says that as a fellow human being he empathises with this improvised desire to find meaning in life by doing good in the world. He says: “ ̽��ֱ��most profound thing to emerge from my conversations is that leading a good life is hard – and harder for some than for others.”

In April 2018, Williams organised a workshop ‘Supporting Muslim Service Users in Community and Probation Contexts’ for frontline staff and volunteers. Probation officer Mohammed Mansour Nassirudeen, who attended the workshop, said: “We need Ryan and researchers like him to give us the bigger picture. I believe this would help bring about desired outcomes for service users from BAME backgrounds, which is long overdue.”

Adds Williams: “My contribution is simply to get people to think about the issues in a different way, to facilitate discussion drawing on people’s own strengths and expertise, and then see where it takes us.”

In July 2018, Williams won a Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Award for his work.

Ryan's research has been incorporated into: guidelines on countering prison radicalisation, adopted by the European Commission in 2017; the evidence base for the Lammy Review on equality and implementing its recommendations; a course on the Good Life Good Society, adopted in 2016 in a high security prison. Read Ryan's This Cambridge Life interview here.

̽��ֱ��workshop ‘Supporting Muslim Service Users in Community and Probation Contexts’ was funded by the Arts and Humanities Impact Fund, and supported by the School of Arts and Humanities and the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The Lammy Review in 2017 drew attention to inequalities among black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system. It also flagged the over-representation of Muslims in prisons. Research by Dr Ryan Williams explores the sensitivities around this topic.

̽��ֱ��higher up the criminal justice system you go, the greater the proportion of people identifying as Muslim

Ryan Williams

Andy Aitchison

Yes

Six Cambridge academics elected to prestigious British Academy fellowship

sjr81 — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 23:57:17 +0000

They are among 76 distinguished scholars to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of their work in the fields of archaeology, history, law, politics and prison reform.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge academics made Fellows of the Academy this year are:

Christopher Evans (Department of Archaeology) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work on some of the most important archaeological field projects undertaken in this country since the growth of development-led archaeology
Professor Martin Jones (Department of Archaeology) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work in the field of in the field of archaeobotany
Professor Joya Chatterji (Faculty of History) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of her work on South Asian history, specifically the history of the India/Pakistan Partition of 1947
Professor Brian Cheffins (Faculty of Law) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work on the application of economic analysis to the area of company law
Professor David Runciman (Department of Politics and International Studies) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work on the history of political thought (from Hobbes through to late nineteenth and twentieth century political thought); theories of the state and political representation; and contemporary politics and political theory
Professor Alison Liebling (Director of the Prisons Research Centre) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of her work on studying prisons, specifically the internal social order of prisons.

They join the British Academy, a community of over 1400 of the leading minds that make up the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. Current Fellows include the classicist Dame Mary Beard, the historian Sir Simon Schama and philosopher Baroness Onora O’Neill, while previous Fellows include Sir Winston Churchill, C.S Lewis, Seamus Heaney and Beatrice Webb.

Christopher Evans said: “As having something of a renegade academic status, I am only delighted and honoured to be elected to the Academy.”

Professor Martin Jones said: “It is a real privilege to join the Academy at a time when the humanities and social sciences have more to offer society than ever before."

This year marks the largest ever cohort of new Fellows elected to the British Academy for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences.

As well as a fellowship, the British Academy is a funding body for research, nationally and internationally, and a forum for debate and engagement.

Professor Sir David Cannadine, President of the British Academy, said: “I am delighted to welcome this year’s exceptionally talented new Fellows to the Academy. Including historians and economists, neuroscientists and legal theorists, they bring a vast range of expertise, insights and experience to our most distinguished fellowship.

“ ̽��ֱ��election of the largest cohort of Fellows in our history means the British Academy is better placed than ever to help tackle the challenges we all face today. Whether it’s social integration or the ageing society, the future of democracy or climate change, Brexit or the rise of artificial intelligence, the insights of the humanities and social sciences are essential as we navigate our way through an uncertain present into what we hope will be an exciting future.

“I extend to all of our new Fellows my heartiest congratulations and I look forward to working closely with them to build on the Academy’s reputation and achievements.”

Six academics from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have been made Fellows of the prestigious British Academy for the humanities and social sciences.

As having something of a renegade academic status, I am only delighted and honoured to be elected to the Academy.

Christopher Evans

Yes

Releasing a better version of me: the power of education in prison to change lives

amb206 — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 10:00:00 +0000

Handwritten letters, in a digital world, are increasingly rare. But, on 18 November 2016, John sat down to write to his friend Jakub. His message begins in capitals: “YES, JAKUB” and goes on to congratulate Jakub on the latest developments in his career. He writes: “I now consider myself your friend, who is so proud of you.”

John’s words are inscribed in biro on lined paper: the notepaper of Her Majesty’s Prison Service. Writer and recipient of this letter could hardly be more different. A former addict, John is serving a lengthy sentence at HM Prison Grendon in Buckinghamshire. Thousands of miles away, Jakub is starting a PhD in criminology in the Czech Republic while working for the Constitutional Court in Prague. With a Masters in criminology from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��, his future looks bright.

Jakub and John are just two of more than 100 people who have been brought together by an ambitious scheme run by academics at Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology. Taught in prisons, Learning Together gives university students and prisoners the chance to study alongside each other. They sit in the same classrooms, engage with the same topics, and carry out the same assignments.

Learning Together was piloted at HMP Grendon in 2015. An-eight week criminology course was taken by 24 learners, half of them graduate students and half of them prisoners. ̽��ֱ��programme is now expanding to other prisons and subject areas. Its remarkable success stems from the passionate belief of its creators – criminologists Drs Ruth Armstrong and Amy Ludlow – in the power of education to capacitate, unlock potential and transform society for the better.

This term, prisoners at Grendon have the opportunity to sign up for a course in literary criticism led by Dr Stacey McDowell from Cambridge’s Faculty of English. Meanwhile, prisoners at HM Prison Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire are offered a course on ‘ ̽��ֱ��Good Life and the Good Society’ run by Drs Ryan Williams (Centre of Islamic Studies) and Elizabeth Phillips (Divinity Faculty).

Religious, political and social differences are high on the public agenda, yet theological and religious education is often taught in a way that’s disconnected from the real world. Williams suggests that this gap between theoretic and real-life perspectives represents a valuable opportunity. “While carrying out my research, I observed that people are guided on a daily basis by ethical and theological questions of what constitutes the ‘good’,” he says.

“Our course finds a middle ground, and provides a chance for students to sharpen their own understanding of what is right and ‘good’ in their own life and in society by having meaningful contact with, and learning alongside, people from a diversity of backgrounds. Yes, we’re taking a risk in that we're exploring questions of difference often seen as sources of conflict, but we believe it’s a crucial one to take.”

Universities and prisons might seem poles apart but both communities set out to transform lives for the benefit of society. “While teaching on access-to-university courses, aimed at students from less advantaged backgrounds, we realised that the students we were meeting had a lot in common with the prisoners we’d encountered in the course of our research,” say Armstrong and Ludlow.

“Many came from similar backgrounds and had been brought up on similar streets. ̽��ֱ��access students tended to have punitive views of people who commit crime – while many prisoners thought they had nothing in common with ‘clever’ people who were destined for university. We saw the same potential brimming in many of them.”

Teaching in prisons is nothing new. However, Learning Together has a broader objective. It sets out to create enduring ‘communities of learning’ in which students from universities and prisons realise how much they have to learn from, and with, each other.

̽��ֱ��shared endeavour of structured learning forges friendships and shatters stereotypes. As a prison-based Learning Together student called Adam put it in an article about his experiences “I had my fears about the course. Will I be judged? Will I be up to it socially? Can I really learn with Cambridge students without looking stupid?”

Adam found the learning environment to be “inclusive and enabling” and wrote that “my confidence has soared and I come out of each session buzzing with new knowledge, new friendships and knowing that I’ve contributed way more than I thought I could". Since completing the course he has won a scholarship that will enable him to take a Masters in English Literature. He has also trained as a mentor for Learning Together students.

Many prisoners have negative experiences of school and gain few formal qualifications. For their part, many university students have relatively narrow life experiences. “Going into a prison, I expected to find immaturity,” said one Cambridge student in a film made by prisoners at HMP Springhill, another prison involved in the project. “Instead, I discovered that I was the immature one.”

At the heart of Learning Together is an approach described by Armstrong and Ludlow as ‘dialogical learning’ – learning through dialogue with fellow students and teachers in an environment of trust. In a blog for an online magazine, a prisoner at Grendon called Anthony shares his thoughts about the liberating nature of this approach.

Anthony writes: “Every session … gave me the feeling that I had been free for a few hours, although not free in the sense that I had been outside the prison, but free in a deeper sense. I could be a better version of myself, which my incarceration, past and fears did not dictate to and smother. It was warmth, compassion and the exchange of ideas – alongside the acceptance of others – that created this released version of me.”

If you are interested in learning more about how your university or department could get involved in working in partnership with a local prison, please contact Ruth Armstrong and Amy Ludlow on justis@crim.cam.ac.uk

A pioneering project to teach university students alongside prisoners, so that they learn from each other, has proved remarkably successful. ̽��ֱ��creators of Learning Together, Drs Ruth Armstrong and Amy Ludlow, are now expanding the scheme and seeking to widen participation across university departments.

They are not studying us; they are studying with us.

Adam (a prisoner talking about the Learning Together course)

Kip Loades

Face to face

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

System is failing to prevent deaths following police custody and prison, study suggests

fpjl2 — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 16:31:20 +0000

Getting released from prison or police custody can be a huge shock to those who have been incarcerated. Our new research gives an indication of just how vulnerable these people can be. We found that over a seven-year period, 400 people died of a suspected suicide within 48 hours of leaving police detention.

̽��ֱ��number of people dying in prisons and in police custody has been increasing for several years. There is, rightly, a statutory obligation for every death that occurs within a state institution to be investigated by an independent body. So each death in a prison is investigated by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO), while the equivalent in police stations are investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

But for people who die shortly after release from police or prison custody, their deaths are not subject to statutory investigation and are too often invisible.

A dangerous transition

Our research, published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, looked into non-natural deaths of people who have been released from police detention or prison custody. We found that the data on these deaths is contingent upon the relevant institutions (prisons, police or probation) finding out about the death in the first place – and this can be difficult.

We examined two sets of data: IPCC data on suspected suicides that occurred within 48 hours of release from police detention and data from the National Offender Management Service on deaths of people under probation supervision, which includes those released from prison. We also conducted interviews with 15 custody sergeants – police officers who are responsible for the welfare of a detainee while in a police station – prison officers and others such as representatives of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) and Public Health England.

̽��ֱ��IPCC data suggest that 400 people died between 2009 and 2016 of a suspected suicide within 48 hours of release, although this number declined between the years 2014-15 and 2015-16, as the graph below shows. People who had been detained on suspicion of sex offences accounted for 32% of the 400 total suspected suicides.

We also examined a selection of 41 investigations and summaries of investigations into apparent post-release suicides that were provided to us by the IPCC. Half of these people had pre-existing mental health conditions. These referrals also pointed to inadequate risk assessment, record keeping and onward referral to relevant community-based care providers such as mental health or drug treatment providers.

We then looked at deaths that had occurred within 28 days of release from prison. Despite some issues with the accuracy and completeness of the data, we identified 66 people between 2010 and 2015 who had died from non-natural causes within 28 days of leaving prison. ̽��ֱ��numbers are small and so it is difficult to draw wider conclusions, but we found that 44 of those 66 died from a drug-related death. Of the 66, 35 had served a sentence for an acquisitive offence such as theft, shoplifting or robbery, offences which are commonly associated with drug use.

We also analysed investigations conducted between 2010 and 2015 by the PPO into deaths that occurred in approved premises, also known as bail hostels, within 28 days of release from custody. These investigations seek to understand what, if anything, could have been done to prevent the death. This highlighted problems with supporting drug-using offenders, a lack of confidence among staff and a failure to create a smooth transition from prison into the community.

Staff under strain

These analyses only tell part of the story. Our discussions with custody officers painted a complex picture. They argued that they were getting better at identifying people in custody with mental health conditions but that their ability to deal with them effectively was restricted by factors beyond their control such as a lack of appropriate treatment for people after leaving their care and an inadequate number of beds in mental health hospitals. They told us that the risk assessment tool they use for identifying such people was not fit for purpose because it did not go into enough detail and that they would benefit from additional mental health training. They were also strongly in favour of the responsibility for healthcare commissioning in police stations being handed to the NHS, rather than PCCs, a proposal which was dropped in December 2015.

̽��ֱ��story from prison staff was similar, but they also talked about the use of new psychoactive substances and the negative effects these substances are having on mental health and safety in the prison.

Problems also exist when it comes to the provision of community-based care after people are released. These include cuts to community mental health services and drug services, as well as recent changes to the probation service, which have seen 70% of the service outsourced to the private sector. Such reforms have made communication between prisons and probation providers more difficult. These budget cuts and public sector reforms are having a serious impact on the ability of criminal justice agencies to deal with these issues and prevent any future deaths.

There needs to be an improvement in the way in which data on non-natural deaths is collected. Deaths post-detention should also be subject to similar levels of investigation as those that occur in police custody and prison. It would be naive to suggest that all deaths of people leaving state detention can be investigated, but there is scope for more oversight from both the IPCC and PPO, at least while they are adjusting to life back in the community. At the same time, the government must maintain investment in mental health and drug services to help prevent those most vulnerable when they are released from detention from taking their own life.

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Professor Loraine Gelsthorpe is Deputy Director of the Institute of Criminology, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Nicola Padfield is Master, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and a Reader in Criminal and Penal Justice, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Jake Phillips is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Sheffield Hallam ̽��ֱ��.

Poor access to health care and confusion over post-detention care may have contributed to more than 400 deaths following police custody and prison detention since 2009, a new report has claimed. Here, in an article first published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation, report authors Loraine Gelsthorpe and Nicola Padfield of Cambridge's Faculty of Law, along with their colleague Jake Phillips from Sheffield Hallam ̽��ֱ��, discuss their findings.

Deaths post-detention should also be subject to similar levels of investigation as those that occur in police custody and prison

West Midlands Police

Custody officer assistant

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Inside information: Students and prisoners study together in course that reveals the power of collaborative education

tdk25 — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 07:00:06 +0000

̽��ֱ��wealth of untapped academic talent inside the criminal justice system has been illuminated by a ground-breaking project in which people in prison studied in equal partnership with Cambridge students.

To date, 22 prisoners have participated in the Learning Together initiative at HMP Grendon in Buckinghamshire, which completed its second term last week. Many students have described it as a life-changing experience, and one student who is currently in prison has already had a paper accepted by an academic journal.

̽��ֱ��project was funded by the British Academy and consists of carefully-structured, eight-week courses involving both graduates studying for the MPhil in Criminology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and students from the prison itself. All of the participants co-operate on equal terms, sharing exactly the same study materials, and working together in small group sessions.

In a report due to be published in the next edition of ̽��ֱ��Prison Service Journal, the organisers, Dr Ruth Armstrong and Dr Amy Ludlow, argue that the course has dismantled stereotypes and prejudice in both directions. While it overturns the assumptions of many prisoners that a university education is something that they will never be able to achieve, it does so by highlighting their ability to handle complex subject matter on an equal footing with their Cambridge peers.

̽��ֱ��forthcoming report argues that more should be done to develop models of prison education which, rather than teaching prisoners in isolation, are built around active collaborations with organisations beyond their walls. In particular, it presents powerful evidence – drawn from interviews with the students who took part – that the experience of studying with others profoundly affected the ways in which all students viewed themselves and thought about the future.

One participant, Gareth, has already written a review of an academic book that he will publish alongside Ludlow and Armstrong in a peer reviewed journal next month. In his graduation speech, Gareth said: “For a large part of my sentence, who I am has been entirely synonymous with the reasons I ended up in prison. Reflecting on the initiative, it seems that the overwhelming product was that I was reminded of being someone other than the person who committed these offences.

“I am someone who has valid and useful opinions, I have an interest in how society works, and the connectedness we feel with the other people who we share this world with. I am developing a sense that not only do I want to help people – I am starting to believe I can.”

̽��ֱ��course organisers suggest that such experiences point to the capacity of projects like theirs to improve current prison-based learning and transform the learning cultures of both prisons and universities, in ways that help all students to realise and develop their skills and talents to support social progress.

They point out that a pathway out of crime relies on something called “Diachronic Self-Control” – the idea that a person can have ideas about what they want to achieve in life, but that these will remain unfulfilled unless they can also access the places and connections which make them achievable. “People have to be able to perceive a different future to be able to move towards that future,” the study observes.

̽��ֱ��Learning Together course involves weekly sessions, each lasting two and a half hours, and covers a series of topics such as the legitimacy of power, and the rebuilding of non-offending lives.

Each week’s reading list typically involves an academic paper and a more accessible piece of content. For example, for the session on Trust and Democratic Voice, students were also asked to read an article about how marginalised groups in Tunisia used hip-hop as a means of self-expression with which to confront state power during the Arab Spring.

Armstrong, who is a Research Associate in Criminology at St John’s College, Cambridge, said that much of the course drew on ideas from more general research into education. In particular, it applies the principles that students learn better when they absorb new information through dialogue and shape it in light of their experiences, rather than through instruction alone. When students realise they have potential, they adopt a “growth mindset” and are more able to capitalise on it.

“When we move some of those ideas from the learning environment into criminal justice, what we show people in prison is that they are not fixed and defined by their offending, but that there are avenues for them to progress,” she said. “That’s a very powerful message.”

Ludlow, a lecturer in Law and Criminology at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, added: “That message is just as powerful for the Cambridge students. Many of them talked to us about how, before Learning Together, their world views were small. Studying together, in dialogue, helped everyone to see how individual ideas and experiences interact with bigger institutions, histories and social forces.”

Their views are echoed by extensive feedback from the students themselves, much of which is reported in the forthcoming journal article. In one particularly moving graduation speech, a student called Zaheer reflected: “It gave me self-esteem and confidence in my own abilities… Being able to put our past behind us and do something positive like this has helped our confidence, transforming our lives.”

̽��ֱ��project has received praise from the Secretary of State for Justice, Michael Gove. “We must be more demanding of our prisons, and more demanding of offenders, which means giving prisoners new opportunities but expecting them to engage seriously and purposefully in education and work,” he said. “I have seen for myself that the Learning Together Initiative at HMP Grendon provides the chance for prisoners to work towards their full potential and gain qualifications as a result. It does great work and it is a testament to the scheme and the hard work of those involved that so many are able to attend the graduation ceremony.”

̽��ֱ��Governor of HMP Grendon, Jamie Bennett, said: “ ̽��ֱ��therapeutic work of Grendon helps to explore and manage some of the profound traumas and problems experienced by the men in our care. Whilst doing this, it is also important to offer opportunities in which they can discover and develop their talents. This course is an example of that.”

Rod Clark, Chief Executive of the Prisoners’ Education Trust, highlighted the value of Learning Together as an initiative with benefits both for the students within the prison and those at Cambridge.

“Problems within prisons – safety concerns, overcrowding, limited access to classes – can make creating a healthy learning environment incredibly difficult,” he added. “Projects like Learning Together help to achieve just that, offering tremendous benefits for people on both sides of the prison wall. They allow prisoners to recognise their ambitions and motivations, while giving the student population an understanding of prison life.”

Armstrong and Ludlow are supporting the creation of similar partnerships between other universities and prisons and other departments within the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. They are also involved with further collaborative initiatives focused on different skills, such as cooking and making music.

Their report calls for the development of an approach to prison education that is “more porous” in terms of its creative engagement with the outside world, and its approach to prisoners as potential assets to society rather than people who merely require correction.

Further information about the Learning Together Programme can be found here.

Additional images reproduced by permission of the Ministry of Justice/Learning Together project.

A highly innovative project in which Cambridge students and prisoners studied together at a Category B prison in Buckinghamshire has broken down prejudices and created new possibilities for all of those who took part. ̽��ֱ��researchers behind it suggest that more such collaborative learning initiatives could help dismantle stereotypes and offer prisoners a meaningful vision for the future after release.

I am someone who has valid and useful opinions, I have an interest in how society works, and the connectedness we feel with the other people who we share this world with. I am developing a sense that not only do I want to help people - I am starting to believe I can.

Gareth, a student on the Learning Together course at HMP Grendon

Learning Together/Ministry of Justice

Prisoner and guard.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Staff-prisoner relationships are key to managing suicide risk in prison, say researchers

fpjl2 — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 14:41:00 +0000

On 1 July 2015, the Government published the Labour peer Lord Toby Harris’ final report of the Independent Review into self-inflicted deaths in custody of 18-24 year olds, which was commissioned to make recommendations on actions that need to be taken to reduce the risk of future deaths in custody.

A team from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Faculty of Law and Prison Research Centre (PRC), in partnership with RAND Europe, was commissioned by the Harris Review to undertake new research on the experience, knowledge and views of prison staff about the nature of suicide risk and its identification and management. Researchers conducted around 50 interviews and focus groups, and observed prisoner assessments across five prisons in England and Wales, including both private and public establishments.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that many prison staff use ‘jailcraft’ — the knowledge and expertise gained through their own experience — to identify and manage at risk prisoners, but staff felt that their capacity to build and exercise this expertise has been adversely affected by a lack of time and budget, and a reliance on blanket risk management procedures.

While some staff held fatalistic views of individual prisoners (‘those who really want to do it will do it anyway’), researchers say that staff who understood the impacts of prison environments, and attempted to proactively ameliorate those impacts upon prisoners, through their relationships with prisoners and practices, were more likely to be effective in preventing deaths.

Such staff placed individual prisoner care at the heart of their work. They used initiative by, for example, ‘creating’ jobs to occupy prisoners’ minds, such as additional cleaning or painting on the wing, or offering in cell ‘distraction packs’ that included Sudoku puzzles or crosswords.

“While some prison staff felt that suicide attempts could be described as acts of manipulation, many saw it as a cry of pain. ̽��ֱ��prison officers who recognised the complex interaction between prisoners’ imported vulnerabilities — such as addiction or illiteracy — and their environment and situations, felt more empowered to gauge the risks of self-harm or suicide and intervene to prevent situations from escalating,” said the PRC’s Dr Amy Ludlow, who led the research.

̽��ֱ��team say their findings highlight the importance of “high-quality relationships between prisoners and staff for identifying and managing suicide risks in an increasingly austere prison environment”.

However, many of the staff interviewed for the research felt that budget-reduction policies, including ‘Benchmarking’ and ‘New Ways of Working’, had adversely affected their capacity and expertise to manage suicide risk proactively, rather than reactively. Many staff expressed frustration at having too little time for personalised, integrated care.

Many of the study’s interviewees described staff losses from early redundancy packages being compounded by high staff sickness — often, they reported, because of work-related stress. In some prisons, researchers observed senior managers undertaking prison officer work such as serving meals to make up for the short fall.

One prison manager told researchers: “Benchmarking has put us between the devil and the deep blue sea. We’ve had to implement it even though we know it’s damaging the prison”.

Staff reported that there were currently too few staff on prison wings, and those staff present were often less effective than they could be because of inconsistent staff deployment, the use of agency staff, low morale and infrequent or inadequate training.

Many staff also reported that social and educational activities in prisons had been reduced as a result of budget cuts, with whole wings of prisoners routinely ‘banged up’ (confined to their cells) for almost all of the day.

“We know from this and other studies that there are a number of protective factors related to the prison environment that impact on the likelihood of suicide," said the PRC’s Professor Alison Liebling.

“Part of this story is how well a prison responds to prisoners’ needs during acute periods of distress. But it is also important that a prison provides an environment where prisoners have meaningful activities and human contact, both for prisoners who are and those who aren’t seen as at enhanced risk of self-harm,” she said.

Researchers found the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) process that dominates the ways in which prisoners at risk are identified and managed — and was credited with contributing to the decline in suicide that began in the mid-2000s — was now often being approached as a ‘tick box’ exercise because staff felt that they ‘haven’t got time to deal with [risk] any other way’.

Staff described an over-reliance on ACCTs, with the result that support was not focused on prisoners most in need of it. Many cited a fear of blame for deaths in explaining their ‘defensive’ use of ACCT. Staff described feeling unfairly blamed when things go wrong, and unrecognised for their successes in preventing deaths by a system that does not understand the resource constraints within which prison work is carried out.

̽��ֱ��research also found that adequate support for staff in preparing for inquests was important in securing positive oriented learning experiences from deaths in custody. While some staff reported evidence of positive change to practice following inquests, some staff, particularly managers, expressed frustration that some ‘pretty straightforward lessons’ were not learned by all staff from inquests.

Some staff and managers were equally of the view that ‘self-inflicted deaths (SID) could act as catalysts for reflection and changes to practice that make SID prevention more effective’, and staff reported looking for an achievable model of effective practice. One member of prison staff reported that “listening to colleague’s stories and experiences would help you grow. Retrospective learning from such incidents would be great. We do too little of it now — we’re always in defensive mode”.

̽��ֱ��team’s findings have helped inform some of the Harris Review’s 108 recommendations about how more deaths in prisons can be prevented: through improved training for staff; recognition of the importance of — and investment in — caring, personalised and respectful staff-prisoner relationships; better information flows between relevant agencies; and a focus on lesson learning following all incidents of self-harm and suicide.

“ ̽��ֱ��Harris Review has raised important questions that demand the attention of policymakers,” said Ludlow.

“My hope is that our study will be a catalyst for further dialogue about suicide prevention, which will complement the Review’s thorough work. There are some dedicated prison staff whose knowledge and experience should inform next steps, as should the insights of the many excellent volunteer prisoner Listeners who support fellow prisoners at times of crisis. That sustained reductions in the rate of suicides in prison were achieved post 2005 suggest that systematic efforts to prevent them can work, given the right organisational context,” she said.

Ludlow points out that the Harris Review states that, by and large, the policies that National Offender Management Services promulgates through Prison Service Instructions are sound and, if implemented, would deliver good practice.

“While suicide risk is intense, multifaceted and dynamic, the protective potential impact of staff-prisoner relationships and the prison environment should give us hope that more deaths can be prevented given adequate resource and leadership, and genuine political commitment to some of the welcome fundamental critiques raised by the Harris Review about the size of our prison population, and experiences of imprisonment that too frequently inadequately support prisoners in their journeys towards non-offending lives,” Ludlow said.

̽��ֱ��full findings of this study are now available online.

̽��ֱ��research team will host a roundtable event to discuss this and related research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge on 8 September 2015. For more information about the event, contact Dr Amy Ludlow.

In the wake of a recent increase in prisoner suicide, new research commissioned by the Harris Review on the views and experiences of prison staff suggests that identifying and managing vulnerable prisoners requires the building of staff-prisoner relationships, ‘knowing the prisoners and understanding what makes them tick’. However, prison staff say that this has been adversely affected by the need to deliver budgetary savings.

̽��ֱ��protective potential impact of staff-prisoner relationships and the prison environment should give us hope that more deaths can be prevented given adequate resource and leadership

Amy Ludlow

ESRC Prison Research Centre film

Staff who understood the impacts of prison environments, and attempted to proactively ameliorate those impacts upon prisoners, were more likely to be effective in preventing deaths.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Filmed behind bars

amb206 — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 08:13:33 +0000

̽��ֱ��past few weeks have seen a re-emergence of a media phenomenon that I had hoped had been consigned to the mists of a more ignorant age. I refer to the two voyeuristic documentaries made for Channel 4 television and filmed in British prisons, Lifers and Gordon Behind Bars.

Based on interviews with inmates, the Cutting Edge documentary Lifers was shot in Gartree Prison in Leicestershire; the series Gordon Behind Bars is set in Brixton Prison in south London and follows the progress of the irascible celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey as he attempts to set up a food business staffed by prisoners.

Prison particularly, and punishment in general, is a social practice visited upon more than 100,000 of our fellow citizens every year yet remains a hidden business, something that happens to others in some other place, a place away from where the business of the rest of society is conducted.

Like all things hidden or unknown, prison breeds a fascination and a thirst for understanding. This desire to know more is in many ways admirable: the torch of inspection, review and understanding should be shone into the shrouded dark of a society’s furthest reaches. It is through such projects that injustice, abuse, exploitation, malpractice and corruption are exposed and can be addressed. However, what was screened in the past fortnight fell far short of this noble enterprise.

Historically, documentary-makers who focus on prisoners, prison life and the carceral state have, with a few notable exceptions (Rex Bloomstein’s Lifers, 1984, and the follow-up Lifer - Living with Murder, 2004), fixated on the sensational, not to mention prurient, facets of that world. ̽��ֱ��approach has been somewhat scatophilic in nature, concentrating less on shining the proverbial light but instead wallowing in the murk and filth.

Of course, this approach has not been the sole province of documentary-makers. There is, lest they be forgotten, the ‘nick-lit’ brigade of writers who focus on, and thus perpetuate, the standard iniquitous mythologies about prisoners and prison life. However, I digress - the approach taken by the makers of Gordon Behind Bars and Lifers is designed to evoke an emotional response, to titillate, rather than provide a means of understanding. I refer to this form of reporting as penal voyeurism.

̽��ֱ��two recent Channel 4 programmes are prime examples of the two flip sides of the penal voyeuristic coin. On one side, we had Lifers, with its clumsy imagery (the fellow with his budgie) and spotlight on sad and broken individuals carrying the weight of years and a dawning horror of their actions. This is the Guardian-esque approach to prison reportage, painting the prison world as a form of Stygian purgatory.

On the other side of the coin, we have Gordon Ramsey’s effort with its visual attention on the situational control measures of bars, gates, locks, walls and so on. Ramsey’s focus is on the promotion of the work/responsibility ethos that has been popular with successive governments since the Thatcher years, the prurient interest in people’s offending history and the volatile machismo of a men’s local prison (though interestingly, and unusually, Gordon’s machoisms were consigned to the voice over). This is the Sun/Daily Mail-esque approach.

It is unfortunate that once again what may have been a good opportunity to explore some of the more important, rarely heard, stories to be found behind the walls was squandered. To sum up one ex-con of my acquaintance it was … “the same old, same old s**t!”

This is not to say there were not some redeeming points made, wittingly or unwittingly, in both programmes. I spent five years in Gartree (where Lifers was filmed) … five years on the same wing, in the same cell, looking at the same walls and I have often struggled to explain to people how that felt and what impact it had on me.

̽��ֱ��major triumph of Lifers was how its makers managed to convey that sense of isolation and time away (the four World Cups as opposed to 16 years) and of time and lives wasted and the impact of that on the familial self (the man talking to his son on Christmas day was especially evocative). It was this sense of passing moments, moments that would normally be spent with loved ones, moments lost, that was poignant and moving and could have done with further extrapolation.

Oscar Wilde said: “We who live in prison have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.” This was what Lifers managed to capture.

Lifers also successfully captured the power of forensic psychologists in a prison setting. Many people in society view psychologists as benign curative entities with the best interest of the vulnerable at heart. This is simply not true in prison, where contact with psychologists is often coerced, and where psychologists have now become, in the words of Dr Crewe, ‘the new enemy of the prisoner community’. ̽��ֱ��reason for this? ̽��ֱ��power of their word. As one of the men in Lifers pointed out, a psychologist could add ten years to a man’s sentence with ‘…the sweep of their pen!’.

For the lifer, psychologists are seen to fill a malignant position: central to their role is not the interests of the offender but the interests of the public - and these can often be in conflict. With nearly an eighth of the prison population of England and Wales serving some form of indeterminate sentence (such as life or IPP), a large portion of the prison population are now subject to the, largely unchecked, power of prison psychologists.

As for the Ramsey series, let’s hope that the inevitable ‘con done good’ hook will, in rather nauseating fashion, move away from the negative stereotypes thus far on show. However, one thing captured brilliantly by the programme was the form and function of the humour that lurks inside. Prison is not a place for smiles (you DO NOT smile on the landings) but it can often be a place of raucous laughter. Humour, often of the blackest kind, is a way of ameliorating the inescapable impact of being locked away.

It would also have been nice to have some form of follow-up on those that were cast aside by the (in my opinion, dubious) selection criteria employed by Gordon and the shows producers (and the prison). However, I feel that once discarded these chess pieces are not to reappear within this game and therefore our curiosity must remain unsated. A shame.

̽��ֱ��third and final part of the first series of Gordon Behind Bars is screened on Tuesday night. What has shown promise for any future episodes, and what could be a saving grace for the series, is the innovation and bravery shown by the Governor in embracing change, challenging the cynicism of his uniformed staff and actually allowing the Ramsey project to take place. This should not be underestimated and needs further exploration. We can only hope that these facets will be allowed to emerge but, alas, I fear that the head chef’s ego conjoined with sensationalist editing will get in the way.

Jason Warr is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Criminology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. His research topic looks at Forensic Psychologists working in the modern prison. He gained a range of qualifications while in prison and did his first degree (Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method) at the LSE.

For thousands of people in Britain, prison is a grim reality. For the rest of us, it holds a fascination that is all too often simply prurient. Jason Warr, a PhD student at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� who has served a custodial sentence himself, offers a critique of television documentaries filmed behind bars.

A good opportunity to explore some of the more important, rarely heard, stories to be found behind the walls was squandered.

Jason Warr

Guardian newspapers

Jason Warr

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