An Appreciative Inquiry of the Diversity Strategy at HMP

Wakefield: practical issues and theoretical challenges

Dr Malcolm CowburnPrincipal Lecturer in Criminology

Sheffield Hallam University&

Dr Victoria LavisLecturer in PsychologyUniversity of Bradford

Structure of Presentation

• How the initial research proposal was developed

• Its aims and objectives • Early thoughts/issues being raised • Research evaluation • Possible ways forward post pilot

Proposal Development: pre award

Diversity Governor and IMB Representative

• Conversations and collaborations• Resolving conflicts of interest• Involving others– In the prison– In the University

Developing the project with the prison

• Meetings with prison staff– Local • Diversity Governor• Psychologists• Wing managers

– National• Race Equality Action Group (REAG)

• Security issues

Negotiation, Approval and Funding• Negotiating the project– Prison (Diversity governor & Psychologist)– Diversity week (post proposal but pre-award)

• Ethical issues (NHS REC)• Prison access (HMP Approval proposal)• Consultation with colleagues (Funding holders)• Funding proposal to ESRC• Methodological issues – (NB – pilot)

Beginning to engage with prisoners• Pre-award• Diversity week workshop with prisoners• WonderWall activity [see poster] to capture prisoners

views about how to research diversity– Which people we should talk to– What ways of finding out about diversity we could use.

• Major, but at the time unanticipated, means of building trust and gaining prisoners engagement with the research.

• Reinforced our confidence in the design of the research we were proposing

Aims and Design of the Project

Aims of the project

• To understand how minority grouping prisoners experience prison life and the strategies designed to improve their quality of life.

• To obtain the views of prison staff about issues of diversity and the prison’s diversity strategy

Design:Data Collection• Documentary analysis • Interviews with offenders • Survey of wing • Focus groups with staff

Design: Appreciative Inquiry

• Interviews• Questions are framed to focus on what

prisoners experience as positive and valuable about prison life and diversity policies and procedures.

Design: Timetable

• Project started March 2009• Phase one – information giving – meetings

with offenders and staff• Phase two – data collection• Phase three – data analysis• Final Phase – Report (February 2010)

Design: Identifying the sample

• Total Diversity Sample of wing• Ethnicity• Age• Disability• Faith• Sexuality

• Purposive within diversity sample to represent– Place in sentence– Offence

Developments post award

Returning to work with the Diversity Week group

• Post award • Follow on workshop to

complete the WonderWall and re-establish prisoner contact

• Impact of WonderWall on research design [see second poster]

• Benefits • Gained prisoner trust and

engagement • Group became advocates

of the research at a wing level

• Group became nucleus of an advisory group

• But, impacts to consider – Whose ‘side are you on’?– Need to retain and

maintain boundaries – Researchers not advocates

Observing ‘diversity’ in action • Attended, observed and took field notes at various

diversity events • Prison wide ‘question time’• Social Inclusion Forums on each wing • Observation of staff and prisoner relationships on pilot

wing

• A word about words • Offender vs. Prisoner

• To ‘have keys’ or ‘not have keys’?• Whose side are you on?

Guiding the ongoing research • Set up a Steering Group • Membership – RRLO; Wing Managers; Wing Staff;

Psychology. Imam; Chaplain; Outside agencies (Age concern); Academic with specialist knowledge from another University; IMB

• Set up a Prisoner Advisory Group • All prisoner diversity reps from pilot wing + two

diversity reps from each of other wings (includes members of the Diversity week group)

Early thoughts on theory and issues being raised

Three key areas to theorise

1. Identities• Identification• Intersectionality

2. Theorising cultures in prison3. Resistance• Matters methodological

Key methodological issues

• AI – collusive … or not?• Accounting for ‘evaluative dissonance’– Quantitative discontents– Qualitative contents

• All of which points to the need for more research!

Research evaluation

Evaluating and assisting the project

• Steering Committee and Prisoner Advisory Group

• ESRC end of project report• Prison & Prison Service report• National and International Conference

presentations• Peer reviewed journals

Moving forward: extending and developing the research

• Options post-pilot– Initial idea – whole prison study of Wakefield only – Other possibilities • Comparative study

– Wakefield and ‘other high security dispersal’– Wakefield and Cat B or Cat C– Wakefield male and female estate.

Your questions and comments