“It’s Us Doing It!” The Power of Participatory Action Research in Prison: A Contradiction in Terms? – Phase 1

Abstract

We describe and reflect upon the process of setting up participatory action research (PAR) with a group of men resident on a personality assessment and treatment service in a medium security prison for male offenders. The service is part of the national offender personality disorder (OPD) pathway, a joint initiative between the National Health Service England and Her Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service set up in 2011. Its aim was to provide a pathway of services for offenders, likely to be diagnosed with a personality disorder, to reduce risk of re-offending and improve psychological health and wellbeing. Consistent with PAR principles, prisoners were trained as co-researchers with the aim of co-producing new knowledge and improving their community. To our knowledge, this is the first PAR project conducted within the OPD pathway. We focus here on initial stages of research design and development. By sharing our experiences, we contribute to the literature on co-production research highlighting key benefits and challenges of PAR in this setting. Key learnings such as the importance of obtaining organizational support, taking time for establishing trust, relationship-building and research training are discussed.

Keywords:

• Participatory action research
• prisoners
• co-production
• user-engagement
• emancipatory methods

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful for the support and input of Dr. Rachel Morton, Andy Kirkpatrick, Stuart McKenna, Jay Clarke, and Laura Davies. We would also like to thank Professor Richard Whittington for early support and comments on a draft of the paper.

Declaration of interest statement

No financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct applications of our research.

Notes

1 The role of the Health Research Authority (HRA) is to protect and promote the interests of patients and the public in health research and to streamline the regulation of research. HRA Approval is required for all research in the National Health Service in England.

2 Throughout the paper we use the term ‘co-researchers’ consistent with PAR terminology. Some co-researchers use their real names, others a pseudonym for this paper.