‘You can have a bit of my pain, see how it feels’ – understanding male prisoners who engage in dual harm behaviours

ABSTRACT

Prison-based violence and self-harm are continuing to rise. Recent research is increasingly showing that for some prisoners, self-harm and violence co-occur, i.e. they engage in dual harm. This study contributes to the developing research and literature focusing on dual harm by presenting an analysis of the dual harm experiences of six men residing in a Category B English prison. Participants were interviewed and their narratives analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Superordinate and subordinate themes were identified, and they shed further light on why men in prison dual harm and what influences their decision to engage in one type of harm over the other at any given time. The findings indicate that co-occurrence is not coincidental. Participants experienced a combination of interlinking factors and complex temporal and experiential relationships underpinning the two behaviours: experiencing difficult and unpredictable environments, an incoherence of sense of self and identity, painful psychological and emotional states, and connections to early adverse experiences. The findings are discussed in line with the growing dual harm research and wider psychological literature. Limitations of the study and future research directions are provided, and implications for policy and practice are suggested.

KEYWORDS:

• Dual harm
• prisoners
• prison
• violence
• self-harm

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the participants of this study for sharing their life and dual harm experiences to aid the better understanding of this important topic. Thank you to the Director of the prison for supporting the research. Thank you to the anonymous peer reviewers for their helpful feedback. No financial interest or benefit has arisen from the authors completion or application of the research. The lead author was employed at the prison establishment when the data was collected.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The dataset for this study has not been made open as this was not included within the research application or the participant consent process.

Notes

1 In the UK, adult male prisons are categorised by security level, with category ‘A’ being maximum security and category ‘D’ being the lowest level of security as an open prison.

2 A training prison offers facilities to prisoners, such as employment, education and offending behaviour programmes (National Offender Management Service, Freedom of Information Request, April 2013, FoI /81993).

3 Software that facilitates custodial management, providing prisoner information to staff; prisoner appointments, bookings and activity timetables; and electronic communication between staff and prisoners.