Getting In (and Staying In) When Everyone Else Wants to Get Out: 10 Lessons Learned from Conducting Research with Inmates

Abstract

The current study aims to provide researchers interested in conducting research using inmates with information and recommendations based on our experiences studying jail inmates. While prior research has begun to identify lessons learned about obtaining access to criminal justice agencies and lessons about establishing positive researcher–practitioner relationships during the process, little is known about the specific challenges associated with data collection efforts after obtaining access to facilities. Therefore, this article aims to provide researchers with information and recommendations primarily on the issues and challenges of studying inmates after gaining entry to correctional facilities. Ten lessons are offered that highlight a variety of challenges that arise from conducting research with inmate populations.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded in part by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. The ideas expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the funding agency or those of the participating correctional facilities. We wish to thank the administrators, correctional officers, and inmates who participated in this research and who made possible these lessons learned.

Notes

1. While we have conducted research with individuals incarcerated in jails, prisons, and juvenile detention facilities, we aimed to focus the article by limiting our examples to jail inmates only, given that we studied jail inmates most recently and these experiences tended to be similar to our work with the other inmate populations. We also chose to focus on jail inmates in an effort to maintain consistency throughout the article.

2. Given that gang members (NYGC 2007) and crime (Duhart 2000) are more prevalent in urban areas, the sample was derived from the largest counties within the state of Florida in an attempt to obtain a higher rate of gang members, offending, and victimization.

3. In an effort to prevent inmates from participating more than once, each pod was visited on a single occasion and subsequent visits to jails were scheduled as close to the first visit as possible (e.g., most return visits occurred on consecutive days). According to our conversations with jail staff, the possibility for inmates to have moved pods within the short timeframe was determined to be unlikely.

4. Nearly 5% of respondents (n = 110 of 2,414) preferred that the entire survey was read aloud as they followed along.

5. Considering the procedure recommended in Figure 1, researchers may wish to first contact a few targeted criminal justice agencies before finalizing the instrument and obtaining IRB approval to assess the likelihood of gaining access (see Step 1 of Figure 1). Once preliminary approval has been obtained from a few of the agencies of interest, researchers may wish to finalize the instrument before contacting the remainder of the agencies.

6. Nine percent of respondents (n = 212) chose to complete the Spanish version.

7. Depending on the number of inmates who do not speak English, it may be necessary to translate and administer the instrument in other languages.

8. Podular housing incorporates separation between bed areas, dormitory housing is often described as open bay with many bunk‐beds in open area, and linear housing is comprised of a row of dormitories separated by a hallway (see visual examples in Beck 1999).

9. In an effort to protect the time of your contact person, we suggest offering to write a sample memo that the contact person can easily modify and send to staff members. The memo should include brief mention of the information described in the informed consent (i.e., name, contact information, purpose of the research, general topic of the questions, length of time anticipated, and the date(s) of schedule data collection).