Issues and Innovations in Prison Health Research: Methods, Issues and Innovations

351 Pages·2021·4.339 MB·English

by  Matthew Maycock, Rosie Meek, James Woodall

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
PRISONS AND PENOLOGY
Issues and Innovations in
Prison Health Research
Methods, Issues and Innovations
Edited by
Matthew Maycock
Rosie Meek
James Woodall
Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology
Series Editors
Ben Crewe
Institute of Criminology
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK
Yvonne Jewkes
Social & Policy Sciences
University of Bath
Bath, UK
Thomas Ugelvik
Faculty of Law
University of Oslo
Oslo, Norway
This is a unique and innovative series, the first of its kind dedicated
entirely to prison scholarship. At a historical point in which the prison
population has reached an all-time high, the series seeks to analyse the
form, nature and consequences of incarceration and related forms of
punishment. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology provides an impor-
tant forum for burgeoning prison research across the world.
Series Advisory Board
Anna Eriksson (Monash University)
Andrew M. Jefferson (DIGNITY - Danish Institute Against Torture)
Shadd Maruna (Rutgers University)
Jonathon Simon (Berkeley Law, University of California)
Michael Welch (Rutgers University).
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14596
Matthew Maycock • Rosie Meek
James Woodall
Editors
Issues and
Innovations in Prison
Health Research
Methods, Issues and Innovations
Editors
Matthew Maycock Rosie Meek
Universtiy of Dundee Royal Holloway University of London
Dundee, UK Surrey, Berkshire, UK
James Woodall
Leeds Beckett University
Leeds, UK
Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology
ISBN 978-3-030-46400-4 ISBN 978-3-030-46401-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46401-1
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Foreword
It is an extraordinary time to be writing and thinking about prison health.
Sometimes only a cliché will do: this book could not be more timely. I
write during Easter 2020 when the Corona virus or Covid 19 is raging
throughout the UK, and prisons and the health of those who are held and
work there are one of the most acute areas of concern.
I hope that by the time this book is read the crisis will have passed but
I hope too that what we have learnt about prison health in this period,
and that this book illuminates and confirms, is not forgotten. The central
theme of this book is that prison health cannot just be seen as ‘an absence
of disease’ but must be understood as ‘the attainment of positive health
and well-being’. We are so very anxious about prison health now not
because the facilities and care provided in prison health centres are poor
but because we know that the total environment of the prison under-
mines prisoners’ health and well-being, making them especially vulnera-
ble to disease.
The current health crisis may have brought these issues to the fore but
some of us have been concerned about them for a long time. They have
been a preoccupation of the inspectorate of prisons for many years includ-
ing during my time as Chief Inspector from 2010 to 2016. Even prior to
the current epidemic, prisons were suffering what the House of Commons
v
vi Foreword
Justice Committee called an ‘enduring crisis’,1 and in my last Annual
Report for 2014–2015 I described how staff shortages, a lack of purpose-
ful activity and squalid conditions undermined improvements in health
care.2 The health of men and women locked in shared cells for many
hours every day, often fearful and anxious, with little to occupy them
physically or mentally must be compromised. For the growing popula-
tion of elderly prisoners, children in youth custody and the dispropor-
tionate number of prisoners whose health was compromised by their
circumstances prior to custody, health deficits will be even greater. I am
no health expert but I remember now how one of my strongest impres-
sions as I first began to immerse myself in prisons as Chief Inspector was
simply how unhealthy prisoners looked. I recall being struck by how
many prisoners had poor teeth—and understood even then that this
must be an indicator of much wider health problems and I am pleased
one chapter addresses this. I too talked to men and women working in
prison gardens, as did the authors of two chapters in the book, and saw
how this could support prisoners’ well-being. When I walked into an arts
project in an otherwise chaotic prison I saw, as another chapter describes,
the therapeutic value these activities can have.
This book therefore rightly calls for more research into prisoner health
in its widest sense and how health outcomes can be improved. The great
contribution of this book is not just that it examines a variety of innova-
tive interventions in prisoner health and well-being but also examines in
detail the research methodologies used to explore them. Conducting
research in prisons in fraught with practical and ethical difficulties.
Simply obtaining access is difficult enough and then there are big ques-
tions about what ‘informed consent’ means in a prison context and how
the relationship between the prisoner and the researcher can be ethically
managed. These issues take a different form in women’s prisons and I am
pleased that a significant section of the book takes a gendered approach.
The position of the researcher is critical too. I found visiting prisons on
a regular basis physically and emotionally demanding. It challenged my
1 House of Commons Justice Committee (29 October 2019, HC 191: para: 5).
2 HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales (2017) Annual Report 2014–15. Williams
Lea Group on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. pp. 7–11.
Foreword vii
own preconceptions and values. Another theme of the book across many
of its chapters is the importance of reflective research, and the authors’
self-aware responses to the work they were doing offer important insights
for future prison researchers.
Most importantly the book addresses—how do we know? How do we
know what is happening behind prison walls and within the prison walls,
behind the personal walls that prisoners like us all erect around the very
personal information and feelings that their health involves? As my period
as Chief Inspector progressed, my understanding of the limits of what we
could know from our inspections grew. I came to understand that none
knows more about what is happening in prison than prisoners them-
selves. So in addition to a rich description of different technical research
methodologies, the book returns repeatedly to themes of co-production
and enabling the prisoner voice to be heard. Indeed, the book had its
origins in a seminar at HMP Barlinnie in Scotland and echoes of the
voices of prisoners and prison staff that informed that seminar are heard
in this book, which eventually followed.
The book is in effect a call to prison and health researchers to turn their
attention to prison health. The corona virus has taught us that the health
of one of us can quickly become an issue for the health of all of us. It is
not just prisoners and prison staff who would have cause to be grateful for
a greater understanding of prison health—it is a matter that affects us all.
Royal Holloway University of London Nick Hardwick
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons 2010–2016
9 April 2020
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Matthew Maycock, Rosie Meek, and James Woodall
2 Participatory Research in Prison: Rationale, Process
and Challenges 21
James Woodall
3 Promoting Health Literacy with Young Adult Men
in an English Prison 39
Anita Mehay, Rosie Meek, and Jane Ogden
4 Challenges and Practicalities in Adopting Grounded
Theory Methodology When Conducting
Prison Research 69
Nasrul Ismail
5 Th e Research Experience from an Insider Perspective 91
David Honeywell
ix
x Contents
6 P risoner Experiences of Prison Health in Scotland 113
James Fraser
7 B uilding Health and Wellbeing in Prison:
Learning from the Master Gardener
Programme in a Midlands Prison 139
Geraldine Brown, Elizabeth Bos, and Geraldine Brady
8 Th e ‘Dead Zone’ in the Stories of People in Prison 167
Alan Farrier
9 E valuation and Reflections from the Use of
Implementation Science to Accommodate a
Community Mental Health Awareness
Programme to a Prison 187
David Woods and Gavin Breslin
10 Oral Health as a Door to Promoting Psychosocial
Functioning for People in Custody: Lessons
Learnt from the Development of the Mouth
Matters Intervention 211
Ruth Freeman
11 Health, Arts and Justice 235
Alison Frater
12 P regnancy in Prison 257
Laura Abbot