This presentation portrays three research pieces that Forensic Psychologists in Serco prisons completed, bringing prisoner voice and experience to developing practices in reducing violence. Exploring prison-based violence through a prisoner lens, gives an opportunity for violence to be understood at ground level, by those who are directly or indirectly exposed to it.
Firstly, causes of violence in a UK prison and the factors that contribute to violence prevention were discussed in prisoner interviews. An interconnected theoretical model emerged, emphasising cultural maintenance factors that could promote, reinforce, and maintain a violent cultural environment.
Secondly, Procedural justice in custody pertains to how people view the decisions made by law and authority figures as fair and legitimate. Interviews with Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) prisoners showed three themes: ‘Feeling Suppressed and Oppressed’, ‘Navigating an Imposed Identity’ and ‘The Injustice of Mistrust’. The accounts in this study illustrate that feeling unable to be heard in prison was linked to the disruption of progress towards rehabilitative goals and a lack of support during times of need, recommendations are discussed.
Thirdly, we tested a hypothesis that ‘negative interpersonal relating’ can predict attrition within a prison-based Therapeutic Community (TC) using a sample of 300 prisoners on a TC in a UK prison. A multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that there were significantly higher levels of negative relating in men that did not complete therapy, compared to those who completed. These findings have important implications for working clinically with prisoners on reducing their risk of violence.
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Natalie Parrett CPsychol, AFBPsS
Director of Psychological Services, Justice and Immigration, Serco, United Kingdom
Natalie Parrett (MSc, CPsychol, AFBPsS) is a Principal Forensic Psychologist with 22 years’ experience working in prisons and secure hospitals in the UK. She is now the Psychological Services Director for the privately managed Serco prisons in the UK, providing the strategic leadership, oversight, is clinically responsible for the governance for Psychological Services and provides consultation and advice on psychological matters to the Prison Operational Directors. She has a particular interest in innovating and developing psychologically-informed prison practice, is the Clinical Lead for Social Responsibility Units (bespoke units to manage and support prisoners with a history of anti-social and violent prison behaviour) and develops psychologically informed training for prison staff. Natalie is a peer reviewer for academic journals and her research includes: Assessing female sexual offenders’ motivations and cognitions: An exploratory study; An evaluation of an Autistic Spectrum Disorder screening assessment constructed for use in a prison setting; An interpretative phenomenological analysis of prison officer experiences when working with personality disordered offenders with intellectual disabilities and Characteristics predicting completion of a psychologically informed custodial unit underpinned by the Good Lives Model: Reflections on the role of Sentence Type, Age and Ethnicity.
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Sam Smith
Forensic Psychologist, Serco, United Kingdom
Sam Smith (MSc, CPsychol, AFBPsS) is a Registered and Chartered Forensic Psychologist with nine years experience working in high security prisons in the UK. He has previously worked in the community in Youth Offending Services and as a Restorative Justice Practitioner. Sam currently practices as a Forensic Psychologist at a privately managed Serco prison. He is the clinical lead in providing psychological consultancy on Young Adults in custody and Men Convicted of Sexual Offences (MCoSO). He also oversees the clinical training and supervision of assessments for high intensity Offending Behaviour Programmes (OBP's). His research includes: “A different world” exploring and understanding the climate of a recently re-rolled sexual offender prison, Prisoner Perspectives of Prison-Based Violence: A Qualitative Grounded Theory Analysis, and Exploring the association between 'negative interpersonal relating' and attrition within a Democratic prison-based Therapeutic Community.
