Abstract
This special issue of The Prison Journal features the scholarship of faculty based at, or associated with. the Institute for Research in Criminology, Community, Education and Social Justice at De Montfort University (DMU), Leicester, UK. Three articles offer critical perspectives on women's prisons, the role of coercive control in the lives of women offenders who are victimized by domestic abuse, and the issue of ethical research practice with imprisoned women. The remaining three contributions include an assessment of prison education in UK prisons, an overview of a hope-inspired UK prison arts program, and the results of a public attitudes survey regarding access to and use of digital technologiesby incarcerated individuals in the UK.
Keywords
Special Issue Contents
This special issue of The Prison Journal highlights the research of criminologists from, or associated with, De Montfort University (DMU), Leicester, UK. As a former Director of the DMU Institute for Research in Criminology, Community, Education and Social Justice, I was privileged in 2019 to welcome Rosemary Gido, the Editor of The Prison Journal, on a scholar's visit to the university. During a roundtable discussion with members of the Research Institute, and with the participation of Professor Anwar Baydoun, Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, this special issue was developed in order to present some of the research endeavors of Research Institute members.
The first three articles deal with experiences of and concerns about women in correctional and criminal justice systems. The issue begins with my article on women in prison in Britain and Ireland. In this review, I outline the persistent problems of women in prison in Britain and Ireland: the prevailing injustices, incarcerated women's gender-specific needs, and the gap between current often broadly held understandings of women's prisons and the harsh realities of correctional policies, programs and institutions.
The second article by Bettinson explores the vulnerabilities of many UK female offenders and the realities of coercive control and domestic abuse that often drive their offending behaviors. She emphasizes the importance of understanding such experiences for current efforts to bring about penal and legal reform, in the application of domestic violence defences and, critically, for the reduction of female prison populations.
In the third article, Quinlan, Baldwin, and Booth propose a new ethical framework for research undertaken with women in criminal justice systems. Additionally, a new model for ethical research, An Ethic of Empathy, is presented. The model calls for a practice of ‘rolling reflexivity’ on the part of researchers. The authors present this article, along with the Ethic of Empathy model, as key pedagogical tools designed to prompt deeper and more critical ethical reflection in researchers in the discipline.
The three remaining articles focus on prison education, prison arts, and public attitudes towards access to, and the use of, digital technologies in prisons. The first by Flynn and Higdon critically evaluates the role of education in prisons in England and Wales. The authors explore the delivery of prison education within the present-day context of education in prison, assessing the operational environments and policies in English and Welsh prison education programming and offering a critical examination of the capacity of prisons to design, manage, and deliver education effectively. In contrast, citizen education is explained and highlighted as a process that offers the potential for a different, more apt, model of prison education.
Next, Atherton, Knight, and Carpenter van Barthold celebrate penal arts interventions and the meaning of hope. Their article examines the work of the Soft Touch Arts Project at HMP (Her Majesty's Prison) Leicester which emphasizes hope as a transformative outcome. They note the penal arts project's efficacy in enabling artists in prison to aspire to better futures, while ameliorating prison harms and assisting participants to more productively manage their relationships with Probation Services.
In the final article, Hadlington and Knight detail their survey research on the public's attitudes toward the acceptability of prisoner access to and use of digital technologies in UK prisons. A scale, Attitudes towards Digital Technology in Secure Environments (ATD-ISE), was developed to measure public tolerance. These authors focus on the importance for prisoners of developing digital literacy as a critical skill essential for use upon return to the community.
In sum, these articles provide a good overview of the research expertise and outstanding work of scholars associated with the DMU Institute for Research in Criminology, Community, Education and Social Justice. Acknowledging the privilege of leading the Institute as Director, it is a great pleasure to present their scholarship, along with the scholarship of associate colleagues, and to anticipate their future contributions to criminological research.