Researching prisoner experiences with prison officers: An action research-inspired approach

Introduction

As the pages of this journal and other writings on action research demonstrate, action researchers conduct research differently. Reason and Bradbury (2008) define action research as ‘a family of practices of living inquiry that aims, in a variety of ways, to link practice and ideas in the service of human flourishing’ (p. 1). It is not, they argue, a methodology in itself, but an approach to inquiry that centralises engagement and meaningful collaboration with ‘those who might otherwise be subjects of research or recipients of intervention’ (2008, p. 1). In contrast to more positivist approaches, where it is sometimes assumed that the researcher holds the expertise and the participants are data fields to be explored, action researchers concentrate on participatory approaches that work collaboratively with participants, focusing on co-producing knowledge and understanding (Olesen & Nordentoft, 2013). Whilst it is essential in any research context to consider and reflect upon the role of the researcher within research processes, too little attention is paid in traditional research methods training to researcher reflexivity, participatory research approaches and the idea that a research process might, in itself, be a driver for change. Much insight has been gained in the fields of social and educational research methodology – specifically in relation to how research is conceived, undertaken and utilised – through accounts of action researchers and reflexive researchers (see, for example, Arieli, Friedman, & Agbaria, 2009; Chandler & Toberbert, 2003; Mauthner & Doucet, 2003; Phillips & Earle, 2010; Thorkildsen, 2013).

The decision to use an action research approach often depends – unsurprisingly – on the desire of the researcher and his or her collaborators to generate action and to make an impact (Rahman, 2008). Action researchers are not neutral observers. They are active facilitators, participants and learners (Reason and Bradbury, 2001, p. 9). A commonality across action research projects is an underpinning activist intention and a desire to facilitate change either within an organisation or community or amongst individuals living in particular circumstances. Brydon-Miller, Greenwood, and Maguire (2003, p. 11) argue that action researchers are committed to ‘a form of research which challenges unjust and undemocratic economic, social and political systems and practices’. They embed their participatory, change-focused aims into every aspect of a research project, from the design through to the analysis and dissemination. As a result, action research projects might be better thought about as change-oriented, cooperative intermediations than as neatly packaged research studies aimed at capturing data, analysing findings and disseminating results, as is the case with many traditional, positivistic research studies.

The idea of utilising research practices and processes to stimulate and facilitate change can be an attractive prospect for researchers whose interests lead them into environments that are particularly oppressive or authoritarian. However, working collaboratively in such environments can be a challenging task. In this article, I describe a project that included prison officers in an ethnographic, qualitative study of prisoner experiences. The project was ‘messy’, troubled by organisational and personal challenges, power dynamics and what has been called the ‘paradox of participation’ (Arieli et al., 2009; Ospina et al., 2004). I suggest that this project might be seen as an attempt to utilise some of the principles of action research – albeit in limited ways – with a small group of ‘powerful’ participants in an effort to create opportunities for them to reflect more critically on their practice and to gain greater insight about the experiences of those they held in custody. Through the example of this project, this article examines two problems. First, it considers the limitations of utilising action research practices in the coercive, controlled and power-dense environment of the prison. Second, it reflects upon the dilemmas, paradoxes and possibilities of attempting to utilise research as a vehicle through which to challenge systemic problems as well as taken-for-granted assumptions held by one group of participants about another. By considering these problems, the article aims to highlight the tensions, immovable structures and embedded power structures of the prison world, which thereby make these environments so resistant to meaningful change. In conclusion, it is tentatively suggested that utilising action research-inspired approaches within prisons or other hierarchical, oppressive environments may disrupt embedded structures and in-grained practices, but that more focus is needed on power relations at all levels in order to facilitate change on multiple levels at once.

Action research in prisons

One of the greatest strengths of action research is the opportunity it provides to work alongside those in marginalised positions in order to collaboratively challenge the status quo and to facilitate transformative change. However, there are some contexts and environments where it is exceptionally difficult to engage in meaningful participatory work with collaborators. Prisons are amongst the most difficult institutions in which to find ways of ensuring full collaborative participation and to promote wholesale transformation. Despite the obvious constraints of undertaking action research in prisons, either with staff or with prisoners, a few examples have been reported in the research literature (see Bennett, Perry, & Lapworth, 2010; Fine & Torre, 2006; Sullivan, Hassal, & Rowlands, 2008; Ward, Bailey, & Boyd, 2012).

Fine and Torre (2006; see also, Fine et al., 2003) have provided a thorough exposition of the complexities of undertaking participatory action research in prison. Their project, conducted in a women’s maximum-security prison in the US, was a collaborative evaluation of the value of maintaining access to college level education within the prison. The project was embarked upon when federal funding for college programmes in prisons was being withdrawn, under then president Bill Clinton. Their work illustrated the importance of participating with and not on behalf of the women they worked with. But it also illustrated the complexities and limitations associated with conducting an action research project within the ‘structural violence and oppressive atmosphere’ that characterises prison environments. Importantly, their work showcased the capacity for an action research approach to allow collaborators to transcend their imported or ascribed roles and positions to work together as a team, sharing experiences and learning from and teaching one another as they worked collectively in active participation. The project yielded a number of co-authored publications from the collective research team, but in Fine and Torre (2006) the authors frankly discuss issues associated with working within the prison context that their collaborators in prison (or released from prison) would not have felt safe to disclose. The authors acknowledged that the prisoners within the research team were always more vulnerable than their non-prisoner counterparts. Fine and Torre (2006, pp. 263–264) argue:

Their poetry, books, journals … were searched, ransacked and tossed out when someone in administration decided to exert power or tried to warn the women, in the sado-masochistic rhythm of prison, about what they were writing (italics original).

These over-arching, if somewhat idealistic, questions set the scene for the project that I became involved in that aimed to develop in-depth knowledge and understanding of the experiences of long-term prisoners using a design which included collaboration with prison officers in three maximum-security men’s prisons in England. As will be discussed, the project cannot be described as action research. The constrained context in which it was being conducted could not support a fully action research-oriented approach. Moreover, aspects of the project design positively contradicted some of the principles of action research. However, as will be revealed throughout its discussion, this project included an attempt to try to shed light on and disrupt aspects of the staff–prisoner relationship that account for some of the injustices and pains associated with prison life. Whilst it ultimately failed to create a sustainable impact, it suggested that there may be scope for applying action research principles and approaches – as a first step to meaningful change – in contexts where power imbalances and deeply embedded structures generate an oppressive status quo.

Studying prisoner experiences in collaboration with prison staff

Paradoxes and limitations of the project

The above project was complex, difficult and, in many ways, problematic. It was ‘messy’ and troubled by power dynamics and the ‘paradox of participation’ (Arieli et al., 2009; Ospina et al., 2004). Although the project attempted to include action research principles, it cannot strictly be described as action research for several key reasons. The aspect of it that perhaps most contradicted an action research approach was the implicitly coercive way it included prison officers in the research process. A number of action researchers have identified the paradoxes associated with effectively enacting fully democratic and participatory methods (Arieli et al., 2009; Thorkildsen, 2013; Ziersch, Osborne, & Baum, 2011). Ospina et al. (2004), for example, have argued that when using a hybrid research design, they encountered paradoxes of participation when, for example, they were required by funders to design a project in advance of working with co-researchers. This ‘paradox of participation’ has been defined by Arieli et al. (2009) as ‘ … a situation in which action researchers, acting to actualize participatory and democratic values, unintentionally impose participatory methods upon partners who are either unwilling or unable to act as researchers’ (p. 275). Similarly, Kristiansen and Bloch-Poulsen (2011) have argued that ‘participation’ can become a ‘buzz word’ and can be subject to both branding and misuse (see also, Nielsen & Svensson, 2006). Moreover, the co-optation of participatory approaches is a potential challenge to the democratic approach of action research and thus needs to be cautiously considered and, potentially, guarded against (Kristiansen & Block-Poulsen, 2011).

Power and the paradox of participation both exercised influence in this project in ways that were not fully anticipated at the outset. In particular, the project could only achieve democratic participation with the officer researchers to a limited extent, given that it was concerned with a problem ‘identified from below’ (by prisoners) and a project ‘designed from above’ (by a steering group). Importantly, the decision to collaborate with prison officers to undertake the research did not come from the officers themselves. Moreover, the project was conducted within the hierarchical structures of the prison world. Although the officer researchers ‘willingly’ volunteered to participate on the research team, their positioning within a rank-based, hierarchical and disciplined service meant that they were accustomed to following the orders of their superiors. Therefore, I was not sure whether they had ‘volunteered’ because a superior officer had told them they should, because they knew the project had headquarters approval or if they were genuinely interested in it. Kristiansen and Bloch-Poulson (2011, p. 371) have argued that it is important to pay attention to the ways in which power is enacted in whatever context we find ourselves researching. They argue that it is essential that action researchers ‘reflect critically on our own categories and ways of entering into relationships with partners [because] … if this is not done, then researchers might practice participation as enactment of interpretative power and education … ’ From an action research point of view, I would argue in retrospect that the idea to provide opportunities for officers to challenge their taken-for-granted views on prisoners through a quasi-action research process was not subject to enough critical interrogation of either democratic participation or the officers’ power positioning prior to undertaking the project.

Drilling down further into the problem with the participative element of this project reveals a core issue that was not resolved during the research process, which was that the assessment of staff culture in maximum-security prisons as ‘negative’ was not consistent with staff perceptions. Prison officers tend to view their occupational and organisational cultures as collegial and supportive (Crawley, 2004; Drake, 2008). Many officers who worked in the two prisons I studied during my doctoral research would acknowledge that there was room for improvement in the way (some) officers worked with prisoners; however, most officers had a great deal of pride in their own working practices and the work of their colleagues. They perceived the heavy security focus in maximum-security prisons as necessary and essential to maintaining order and safety (see Drake, 2011, 2012). Many saw the objectification of prisoners as not only unproblematic but also a functional and valuable strategy for maintaining security. One of the tensions of this project was that it was a kind of ‘intervention’ with prison staff – to challenge their perceptions about prisoners. This underlying interventionist mission of the research undermined the integrity of its participatory elements. However, having attempted this project and having witnessed the increased reflective, critical awareness amongst the officers who took part (even if it was fleeting), I would argue that with a more carefully designed action research approach, subsequent work in this area could, ultimately, successfully disrupt oppressive structures either within prisons or, perhaps, in other power-dense environments.

Disrupting oppressive structures with an action research-inspired approach

There are two interrelated issues thrown up by the research project that warrant further exploration, particularly with reference to their relevance to wider action research practices and what a project of this nature might offer in terms of new directions in action research. The first issue relates to the capacity for action research approaches to allow collaborators to transcend their usual roles. In this case, a (quasi-) participatory approach allowed prison staff a unique opportunity to step outside the role of officer and enter into the role of researcher. The second issue concerns the potential role for action research principles to be drawn upon to instigate significant, foundational change. My reflections on this latter issue will be more tentative, but I aim to suggest that the principles on which action research are founded (i.e. social justice, democratic participation, challenging oppressive social arrangements) provide just the right antidote or formula for disrupting oppressive structures, even when the approach can only be used in limited or incremental ways. However, I first consider the issue and importance of ‘role transcendence’ in action research.

Action research approaches challenge the roles of ‘researcher’ and ‘participant’, as traditionally described in the human and social science literatures. Numerous descriptions and accounts of action research projects discuss the way roles, power dynamics and perspectives shift during the process of undertaking action research (Brydon-Miller et al., 2003; Fine & Torre, 2006; Reason & Bradbury, 2008). Whilst these shifts can be disconcerting and uncomfortable for all concerned, they can also allow for changes of perspective that would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve through other means.

In the prison project described here, shifting the prison staff out of the role of prison officer was an important dimension of the research process. The officer researchers were able to experience what it felt like to be an ‘outsider’ civilian inside a prison. Members of the research team commented on how surprised they were at the behaviour of their counterparts towards civilian visitors. They said they were often made to feel like ‘outsiders’, interlopers or ‘spies’ and learned to work hard to ingratiate themselves to the staff who were ‘gatekeeping’. The techniques of rapport building that must be employed by prison researchers have been described in the research literature (Drake & Harvey, 2013; Jacobs, 1974; Waldram, 2009). However, this activity was new to the prison officer researchers who were accustomed to a more unconditional welcome when they undertook detached duty in a different prison. This gave the officers an insight into the closed ranks of prison officer culture and allowed them to glimpse what it felt like to be outside this group – either as a civilian or, potentially, as a prisoner. The research, therefore, provided a unique opportunity for the prison officer researchers to view the familiar world of the prison from an unfamiliar perspective.

Gaventa and Cornwall (2011) have argued that reflection, learning and the development of critical consciousness are key elements of action research. Moreover, they suggest that:

… critical self-learning is important not only for the weak and powerless, but also for the more powerful actors who may themselves be trapped in received versions of their own situation. For this reason, we need to understand both the ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ (Freire, 1970) and the ‘pedagogy of the oppressor’, and the relationship between the two. (Gaventa & Cornwall, 2011, p. 76)

The second issue I want to examine speaks to the problem of facilitating wholesale transformation within the prison environment and tentatively consider the potential role for action research principles to be drawn upon to instigate fundamental, foundational change. One of the greatest strengths of the project I have described here was, paradoxically, also its greatest weakness and, as it turned out, its fatal flaw. This flaw was that it was conceived with an exceptionally long-term vision in mind. It was understood by Prison Service senior managers that some fundamental changes needed to take place to try to address the widening gap between staff and prisoners in high security prisons. But it was also understood by them that this type of change would take a long time to effect. The long-term goals for the project were that qualitative research teams comprising prison officers would be formed, trained and deployed at annual or semi-annual intervals in perpetuity, so that more and more officers would be exposed to the research experience. Moreover, it was envisioned that their findings would be fed back into each of the prisons through multiple means (full staff meetings, focus groups and training modules) and be delivered by the officers who had been directly involved in the research. Thus, there was a working theory amongst the steering group that by providing these opportunities for prison officers to hear and better understand prisoners’ experiences of prison first hand, a more sophisticated approach to working with prisoners might become possible – over time. The prison officers who worked on the project understood – and appreciated – that there were too few opportunities in their daily working lives to speak and listen to prisoners and they welcomed the opportunity to do so more freely. However, the project was largely viewed by them as an interesting and unusual opportunity. They did not see it as an activity that was potentially linked to fundamental changes in practice. For them to have done so, the project would have had to have become more firmly embedded in their organisational structure. The withdrawal of support for the project at the highest level of the Prison Service meant that any headway that was gained in our first attempt to facilitate enduring change was soon lost when each of the prison officer researchers returned to their home establishments and the project came to a premature halt. However, the modest success of the project that emerged in the form of increased critical self-learning whilst the research process was underway suggested that root and branch change might best be accomplished through continued action and collaborative means. Through enacting action research principles and approaches, understanding and compassion were nurtured between groups that otherwise adhered to an ‘us and them’ interactional status quo. Kemmis and McTaggart (2000, p. 573) have argued that action research:

… frequently emerges in situations where people want to make changes thoughtfully – that is, after critical reflection. It emerges when people want to think ‘realistically’ about where we are now, how things came to be that way, and from these starting points, how, in practice things might be changed.

Conclusion

It perhaps goes without saying to readers of this journal that action research is a pioneering, ground-breaking method (see Brydon-Miller et al., 2003 for a fuller endorsement of this statement). It is founded on principles of participation, user engagement, impact and change. These principles are now, increasingly, being espoused by research funders, higher education providers, and in a range of other research and education-related sectors. Thus, action researchers are, perhaps, poised to lead the way in innovative methods, cooperative research partnerships and participatory approaches. Moreover, a current trend in thinking across a variety of political and academic fields is that local problems need local solutions (Dempsey, Bramley, Power, & Brown, 2011; Ellison, Shirlow, & Mulcahy, 2012; Lowndes & Pratchett, 2012). There is considerable appetite in a variety of institutions to increase opportunities for academic and practitioner and/or community alliances. It is possible that we are at the cusp of a moment where the sites and engineers of knowledge production could feasibly shift more firmly away from the academy and toward those people and places who are already the experts in their respective fields or in their own lives.

Returning to one of the main issues that precipitated this project, as discussed at the beginning of this article, namely: Could action research processes provide the means through which to facilitate systemic, foundational change? Could it, for example, be the vehicle for challenging the very terms and conditions of confinement? Despite the evident failures of the project discussed here, I would argue that action research processes might be the only means by which the terms and conditions of confinement might be meaningfully challenged and changed. Gaventa and Cornwall (2011, p. 78) argue that participatory methods can operate in nuanced ways and ‘can facilitate change at multiple levels, among multiple actors’. More crucially, they argue that large-scale change might be possible through participatory research and that change is contingent on the quality of relationships as much as on power relations, capacity or the relative strength of participating actors (pp. 78–79).

In power-dense environments, such as prisons, it is difficult to effect meaningful, sustainable change either from below (through activist projects with prisoners) or from above (as the above research illustrates). However, as Gaventa and Cornwall (2011) suggest, perhaps participatory approaches on multiple levels are what is needed when trying to facilitate larger scale change. Ideally, then, a project which aimed to draw together actors from multiple levels might ultimately be more successful and, potentially, sustainable. The difficulty, however, would be gaining access to undertake such research and securing sustainable ‘buy in’ and commitment from participants and collaborators. Olesen and Nordentoft (2013, p. 89) argue that action researchers aim to create the spaces of possibilities within the social worlds they participle in. Thus, it may be possible that mobilisation of third sector groups, activism with prisoners and prisoners families or further engagement with prison staff who are like those who participated in the project described here may be a ‘way in’ to opening up spaces of possibilities that can then be incrementally expanded through action research practices.

Whilst research can be deployed and utilised in many different ways to change the conditions in which we live, there are times when the research process itself can be that driver for change. In prisons and in the field of criminal justice, more generally the goal of understanding is often absent from policy, political rhetoric and official practice (Harvey, 2011). Action research processes might provide a means by which those occupying different power positions (as discussed by Gaventa and Cornwall, 2011) can shift their perspectives, transcend their usual roles and gain deeper understandings both about themselves, their fellow collaborators and the environment in which they live or work. Within criminal justice settings, where ‘othering’ and dehumanisation are increasingly commonplace (see Drake, 2012), taking inspiration from action research principles and approaches may offer a practical and meaningful means by which the status quo might be questioned and unseated. Whilst the project discussed here ended prematurely, its vision for taking an incremental approach to foundational change using an action research-inspired approach to co-produce knowledge and understanding may offer a way to disrupt oppressive structures and work together with both powerful and powerless groups to tackle complex, enduring and perennial social problems.