Secondary analysis of data collected over a 20 year period by HM Inspectorate of Prisons

This proposal uses data from over 100,000 prisoner surveys conducted by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales (HMIP) over the last twenty years to examine how prisoners' reports of their treatment and conditions varies according to their characteristics, sentence and other factors, and how this relates to changes in prison policy and performance over this period.

Since June 2000, HMIP has conducted detailed, confidential surveys of prisoners as part of every full prison inspection it undertakes. Throughout this period the surveys have been conducted by accredited government social researchers according to a published methodology (see for example HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2020a: 73-74). The survey is administered by independent HMIP researchers without any participation by prison staff.

Participation is entirely voluntary and individual respondents cannot be identified. The resulting database consists of survey data from at least 100,000 respondents and contains more than 10 million analysable responses. These have been collected from every prison and young offender institution (YOI) in England and Wales.

Furthermore, as HMIP's remit has expanded over this period (HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2019: 6-7) it has conducted regular surveys in Secure Training Centres (these hold children between the ages of 12 and 17-years of age), Immigration Removal Centres, and Military Detention Centres: this provides a wealth of accessible but as yet unexplored data for prisons and other places of detention. Following a successful feasibility study conducted by Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL) in collaboration with HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) during the first half of 2020, an infrastructure is now in place for a large-scale historical database to be prepared, analysed, and made accessible to academic researchers for the first time.

The research will use analyses of prisoners' own accounts of their experience recorded in their survey responses to develop new insights into the most pressing issues facing the prison system at this time: deteriorating safety with high rates of assaults, self-harm and suicide; consistently high reoffending rates for those released from prison; restrictions on the time prisoners are able to spend out of their cells participating in work, education and rehabilitative activities; and how these differ according to prisoners' characteristics. The need to use prisoners' experience to address these topics and the importance of them to the operation of safe, decent and rehabilitative prisons is addressed in a large body of academic literature.

The proposed research has an immeduate and direct relevance to how prisons will emerge from the restrictions imposed as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic and the need to address the disproportionality highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement.

The project team will work closely with practitioners, other experts and former (and if possible current) prisoners to develop practical guidance and recommendations arising from the research and leave the data base as a lasting legacy from the project, enabling teachers and researchers to make use of this previously hidden resource. We have been encouraged by the responses we received in the prisoner focus groups we ran during the feasibility study which expressed the wish for the surveys to be used positively to support improvement and the value senior policy makers have identified in this work and their desire to play an active role within the project advisory group.