자연주의적 탐구조사(Naturalistic Inquiry)

Research evidence demonstrates that sex offender treatment programmes (SOTPs) can reduce the number of sex offenders who are reconvicted However, there has been much less empirical research exploring the experiences and perspectives of the prison environment within which treatment takes place This is important, particularly for sexual offenders, as they often face multiple stigmas in prison This study used a mixed-methods approach to explore the experiences of prisoners and staff at a therapeutically orientated sexual offenders' prison to understand whether the prison environment was conducive to rehabilitation The quantitative strand of the research sampled prisoners (n = 112) and staff (n = 48) from a therapeutically orientated sex offenders prison This strand highlighted that both prisoners and staff had positive attitudes toward offenders and high beliefs that offenders could change Importantly, the climate was rated positively and, in particular, participants had very high ratings of "experienced safety" The qualitative strand of the research consisted of semistructured interviews with prisoners (n = 15) and a range of prison staff (n = 16) The qualitative analysis revealed positive prisoner views toward staff relationships, with most participants articulating that the prison and its staff had contributed to positive change in prisoners Crucially, the environment was perceived as safe and allowed prisoners "headspace" to work through problems and contemplate change This research offers some support to the notion that context is important for sex offender rehabilitation

“They Treat Us Like Human Beings”—Experiencing a Therapeutic Sex Offenders Prison Impact on Prisoners and Staff and Implications for Treatment

Attitudes towards sexual offenders: what do we know, and why are they important?

There is plentiful evidence that imprisonment is painful, harmful and criminogenic. However, alongside accounts that emphasize such consequences are alternative narratives, in which some prisoners ...

The prison as a reinventive institution

John Irwin (1929-2010) ha sido uno de los sociologos del encarcelamiento norteamericano mas influyentes desde la segunda mitad del Siglo XX. Autor de varios textos fundamentales en la materia, no obstante, su obra no se encuentra traducida al espanol. El libro que aqui se comenta, ultima publicacion de importancia seis anos antes de su fallecimiento, describe microsociologicamente el funcionamiento de los establecimientos penitenciarios norteamericanos surgidos a partir del auge del encarcelamiento desde finales de la decada de 1970: supermax prisons (prisiones de maxima seguridad) y, con mayor profundidad, warehouse prisons (prisiones deposito). Analiza los regimenes penitenciarios aplicados en ellos, y los efectos que causan en la subjetividad de las personas que lo sufren. Tambien ensaya, desde una vision externa, los vinculos de esta transformacion punitiva con la reconfiguracion de la estructura social y economica posfordista. John Irwin se convirtio en un autor de referencia en la sociologia del encarcelamiento al publicar, junto a su maestro Donald Cressey, un articulo clave para el estudio de las sociedades carcelarias: “Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture”1. Hasta entonces, su biografia se encontraba bastante alejada de los claustros academicos. Luego de cumplir una pena de cinco anos de prision por delitos contra la propiedad y abuso de drogas en Soledad –el primer establecimiento penitenciario californiano habilitado una vez finalizada la II Guerra Mundialingreso a UCLA

Comentario a John Irwin: "The Warehouse Prison. Disposal of the new dangerous class"

Established in 1991, the Listener scheme, regulated by the Samaritans, is currently the best-established peer support scheme in place to help reduce suicide in prisons. Each prison Listener team is comprised of a group of inmate volunteers who provide face-to-face emotional support to their peers. Although the scheme has been in operation for over 20 years, empirical research on the scheme is limited. A deeper understanding of how being a Listener affects prisoners' attitudes, beliefs, emotions and experiences of imprisonment is needed. The present study is a qualitative analysis on the experience of being a Listener and the impact it has on individuals and their prison experience. Interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The analysis revealed two main superordinate themes: ‘Listening and Personal Transformation’ and ‘Countering Negative Prison Emotions’. These themes are unpacked and the analysis focuses on their implications for desistance and offender reform. Results sug...

Accumulating meaning, purpose and opportunities to change ‘drip by drip’: the impact of being a listener in prison

Understanding how sexual offenders experience prison and its environment is important because such experiences can impact on rehabilitation outcomes. The purpose of this research investigation was to explore the rehabilitative and therapeutic climate of a recently re-rolled sexual offender prison. The research took a mixed methods approach and consisted of quantitative and qualitative phases. There were differences between prisoners and staff on their perception of the prison climate and for prisoner and staff relationships. The qualitative results helped to explain the quantitative findings and added a more nuanced understanding of the experience of the prison, the nature of prisoner and staff relationships and the opportunities for personal growth within the prison. The study has important implications for prisons that co-locate sexual offenders and want to provide an environment conducive to rehabilitation.

“A different world” exploring and understanding the climate of a recently re-rolled sexual offender prison

Individuals incarcerated in prisons across the United Kingdom and abroad are able to volunteer for a variety of peer-support roles, which are characterized by prisoner-to-prisoner helping. Some research has found that such roles can represent turning points in the lives of those who have offended and encourage movements toward desistance. This proposed redemptive influence is argued to result from the prosocial behaviors that such roles appear to elicit in their holders. The present study aims to explore the mechanics of this claimed influence. While a limited amount of research has attempted this on a general offending population, no research has done so with a sample of sexual offenders. Given the intensive treatment programs involved in such contexts, and the requirements for sexual offenders to demonstrate reduced risk, the authors believe those serving time for sexual offenses represent an important sample on which to explore the potentially redemptive properties of peer-support roles. To this end, 13 peer supporters participated in semistructured interviews. Transcripts were analyzed using a phenomenologically oriented thematic analysis. Results suggest that sexual offenders who adopt peer-support roles are able to live up to desired selves by “doing good” in prison, “giving back,” and consequently resisting negative labels. These benefits have been theoretically linked with better reintegration outcomes for sexual offenders, who are publicly denigrated in the extreme and find it especially difficult to (re)integrate. Suggestions regarding the future utility of such schemes are offered.

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“It’s Sort of Reaffirmed to Me That I’m Not a Monster, I’m Not a Terrible Person”: Sex Offenders’ Movements Toward Desistance via Peer-Support Roles in Prison

Several peer-support programmes (schemes) are currently operating in UK prisons. Via these schemes, prisoners are able to access support for issues ranging from emotional distress and addiction problems to practical and educational needs. Although these schemes have existed in prisons for decades, research focussing on those who uphold peer-support roles is scarce. This chapter aims to generate a deeper understanding of how adopting a peer-support role in prison can impact offenders’ experiences of imprisonment. Using qualitative interview with 17 volunteers from various programmes: prison “Listeners” (N = 6), “Insiders” (N = 5), “Toe-by-toe mentors” (N = 3), and “RAPt Mentors” (N = 3), the authors illustrate how occupying these roles contributes to meaning making and the overall process of criminal desistance.

Movements Towards Desistance via Peer-Support Roles in Prison

Peer-support has existed in prisons both in the U. K. and abroad for decades, primarily in the form of discernible yet informal 'programs'or 'schemes'. Through these programs, prisoners are able to access support from fellow prisoners for issues ranging from emotional distress and addiction problems to practical and educational needs. Peer-support, as a general 'help resource', is underscored by the principles of mutual reciprocity, empathy, and shared problem solving. Although this resource has existed in prisons for decades, research focussing explicitly on those who uphold peer-support roles is virtually non-existent. This is surprising when considering the apparent benefits of peer-led helping (i.e. prisoners upholding meaningful empathetic roles) and the ever-present global obsession with identifying 'what works' in addressing the problem of crime. It is even more surprising when considering that peer-helping boasts the innate and transparent benefit of being virtually cost-free. Indeed, an intervention that has organically established itself in the prison context, remained there for decades, and has clocked up no calculable monetary cost warrants further investigation. To this end, the overarching aim of this thesis and its empirical chapters was to provide a deeper understanding of how adopting a peer-support role in prison may affect offenders’ attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and experiences of imprisonment. This was approached qualitatively and on two levels in terms of offence type (generalised and sexual), and three levels in terms of context (personal, institutional, and social). Three empirical chapters (studies) represent the core of this theses. 

Study 1 explored the broad construct of peer-support with those who uphold peer-helping roles in prison. It asked participants questions relating to how peer-support roles are delivered, experienced, and assimilated into a number offending contexts (i.e. at an experiential and institutional level and at a personal subjective narrative level). Given this holistic focus, this study utilised a sizable (N=22) sample comprised of mixed offence type participants who resided across three U.K. prisons. It relied on semi-structured interviews and employed thematic analysis to draw out recurrent notions that portrayed an understanding of the dynamics of peer-support in prison and its utility amongst offenders. The analysis within this study revealed that the implications of peer-helping in prison transcend far and wide the simple notion of shared problem solving. For incarcerated people, upholding a peer-support role offers a wellspring of meaningful activity that can be used to cope with prison deprivation, enhance well-being, contribute to good lives and possible selves, and energise cognitive transformations. Ultimately, this study introduced the encouraging notion that through peer-support roles, prisoners can gather forward momentum and create trajectories that are not predetermined by being doomed to deviance.

Study 2 continues the enquiry into the utility of peer-support in prisons and focuses on the experiences of the role-holders themselves. This time there is an explicit focus on a smaller sample (N=15) and on sexual offenders. The justification for these decisions was based on both previous exemplary studies, and the fact that sexual offenders represent an under-researched, poorly understood, and deeply ostracised population. Sexual offenders are also required, more so than other offending populations, to go through intensive treatment programs and demonstrate reduced risk. Therefore, such offenders were considered an important population with which to explore peer-support, given that it appeared from study 1 to engender a community and restorative aspect typified by 'doing good'. The inherently personal-subjective and deeply phenomenological insights that characterised much of the dataset in study 1 featured in the decision to employ an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) in this study. Here, the 15 participants who upheld roles as 'Listeners', 'Insiders', and 'Shannon-Trust' mentors participated in semi-structured interviews. The IPA reiterated many of the findings from study 1 in terms of the experiential benefits of peer-support and the importance of meaning-making in prison. However, analysis also revealed specific benefits of peer-support for sexual offender populations, such as the chance to earn self-forgiveness and consequently move away from harmful labels such as 'monster'. There were also some important implications alluded to throughout this chapter that related to maximising sexual offender treatment gains, and these are discussed alongside rehabilitative climate and therapeutic community bodies of literature. 

Study 3 edged away from the phenomenological experiences of the individuals who upheld peer-support roles and asked questions about peer-support as a wider level of intervention that might be formally assimilated into the institutional context if prison. A convenience subset sample of participants from studies 1 and 2 were follow-up interviewed and their thoughts about the status and potential utility of their peer-support programs were explored. The objective here was to explore peer-support on more of a structural level, but while still relying on the insights from the experts – the peer-supporters serving time. Therefore, participants' general understandings of peer-support, rehabilitation, imprisonment, and how these constructs interact were sought. The aim here was to generate an understanding of the organisational and structural influences that govern rehabilitative work, and how these can either represent challenges or opportunities for the future of peer-support. The questions put to participants yielded responses that were thematically analysed and reduced to three superordinate themes ('through the gate implications', 'stumbling blocks', and 'implications for policy and practice'). The analysis highlights several ways in which peer-support can assist the criminal justice system in dealing with the intricate challenges that come with attempting to rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders. A set of stumbling blocks (institutional challenges) that need to be addressed in order to maximise the utility of peer-support in prisons are also identified and unpacked.

These empirical findings from this research are reflected on in the final two chapters of this thesis, firstly within the scope of a literature-informed discussion, and secondly within the framework of desistance and reintegration theory. The former looks to tie any loose-ends between the literature review and the analytical chapters, and rework any early assumptions and definitions according to the research findings. Accordingly, the extant theoretical definitions of peer-support are re-examined, and some suggestions for how these can be extrapolated to incorporate the prison environment are offered. Also, many of the theoretical understandings interweaved into the analyses in this thesis are revisited, and the degree to which they synergise with peer-support in offending contexts is deliberated. One of the main discussions in this section relates to the extent to which peer-support roles might compliment desistance and whether, therefore, it may be considered to have an innate redemptive property. The final chapter proposes some potential uses for peer-support, mainly for the endeavours of operationalising and shaping theory, and contributing to practical work with offenders.

This thesis closes with a discussion of its limitations and its hopes for the future. It departs with two fundamental messages: 1) a call to policy makers and scholars to acknowledge and further investigate the vast utility of peer-support in prisons; 2) a plea to society to listen to and be willing to accept the people that so often want to be a part of it.

Christian Perrin

Papers

Accumulating meaning, purpose and opportunities to change ‘drip by drip’: the impact of being a listener in prison

“A different world” exploring and understanding the climate of a recently re-rolled sexual offender prison

“It’s Sort of Reaffirmed to Me That I’m Not a Monster, I’m Not a Terrible Person”: Sex Offenders’ Movements Toward Desistance via Peer-Support Roles in Prison

Movements Towards Desistance via Peer-Support Roles in Prison

The untapped utility of peer-support programs in prisons and implications for theory, policy, and practice