An Appreciative Inquiry into the response to diversity in three Yorkshire Prisons

Responding to diversity within the prisons setting is a complex and challenging process and HM Prison Service is still developing and refining its national policy framework to ensure that its responsibilities under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000), the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) and the new Equalities Act (2010) are met. Within this wider framework each individual prison is required to develop their own local policy framework to promote equality and reduce discrimination in relation to seven 'protected characteristics' of diversity; age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnerhip and pregnancy and maternity (MOJ, 2011).
The present research builds on a previous ESRC funded pilot project undertaken by the researchers which aimed to develop and test a methodology for exploring the response to diversity in prisons. It aims to employ the methodology more widely within the Prison Service to develop a body of knowledge about the response to diversity using three prisons from the Yorkshire region as case studies. The choice of sites is influenced by the need to capture the experiences of prisoners and prison staff across a range of different security categories and types of prison and includes; HMP Wakefield, a maximum-security prison accommodating adult male prisoners convicted of very serious offences, serving long sentences and who may continue to pose a risk to others (including prison staff, other prisoners and, if they were to escape, the general public); HMP Leeds, a 'Local/Remand' prison accommodating adult male prisoners awaiting court appearances, prisoners awaiting allocation to other prisons and prisoners serving short sentences; and HMP Lindholme, a Category C prison accommodating prisoners, over the age of 21,allocated a relatively low security category. The population includes prisoners serving life sentences who may have served a substantial period of their sentence elsewhere and prisoners serving shorter sentences.
The three year research project will illustrate:
o how prisoners in diverse minority groupings experience the diversity policies and procedures in place at each establishment,
o which aspects of policies, procedures and practices in each prison are perceived by minority groups to promote feelings of respect and well-being,
o how prison staff experience the policies and procedures that guide their practice with prisoners from diverse minority groupings, and,
o ways in which diversity policies, procedures and practices in each prison could be improved to promote a greater feeling of respect and well-being in minority groups.

It will also explore and develop theories of intersectionality as a way of understanding how people experience prison life. Commonly, aspects of personhood such as ethnicity, religion, and sexuality are deemed to be distinct aspects of experience which determine the political, social and economic dynamics of oppression. Theories of intersectionality recognise these aspects as commonly overlaying one another, creating complex intersections at which several aspects may meet. They can address the ways in which policies and the actions of those implementing policies can operate together to create discrimination and disempowerment, and offer a means of accounting for the ways in which forms of discrimination structure the relative positions of people of diverse minorities.
These aims will be met combining four stages of data collection: an appreciative ethnography of the relationship between official diversity policies and procedures and the knowledge and practices of staff, interviews with prisoners' representative of diverse minority groupings from all wings of each prison, a survey of all prisoners in each prison, focus groups with staff from the residential wings and other departments across each prison.

Our assessment of impact is grounded in impacts evidenced as arising from our earlier pilot and knowledge exchange activities.

WHO WILL BENEFIT AND HOW?
The pathways to impact in this project are not end-loaded. By involving beneficiaries throughout the course of the project impacts will occur at various times during the duration of the project and beyond.
ACADEMIC COMMUNITY: researchers & theoreticians in penal policy, prison sociology/psychology understanding diversities and theorising intersectionality (in custodial settings) will benefit as outlined earlier.
NATIONAL POLICY MAKERS: will benefit from the situated and contextualised knowledge produced, enabling the development of more informed and sensitive policies in the area of diversity; this benefit is exemplified in the production of a policy for transsexual prisoners arising from the earlier pilot research and knowledge exchange (KE) activities.
NATIONAL OFFENDER MANAGEMENT SERVICE AND PRISON PARTNERS: benefits will arise at three levels, individual prisons, regionally and nationally. Senior national and regional members of the organisation benefit via participating in the Executive Steering Group, local NOMS/Prison managers will sit on specific steering groups for each prison. This direct involvement in the project will enable an immediate exchange of knowledge/findings to specific locations. At the end of data collection in each prison a report will be prepared identifying local findings. This will inform each establishment of good practices and areas where change is needed. It will also make specific recommendations in relation to improving practices. An overall report synthesising the findings from the three prisons will be distributed regionally and nationally.
PRISON STAFF: Uniformed staff, specialist sections and prison managers will all benefit. Our earlier research indicates three sources of benefit; 1) direct participation in staff focus groups, 2) participation in the prison steering group (PSG) and 3) in the recognition of both good practice and areas to be improved identified in the research reports. In the pilot research staff morale was improved with the recognition that staff sometimes worked well in very difficult situations. Moreover, staff practices were improved as a result of KE activities following the pilot project (for example in areas relating to diversity and sensitive searching, working with gay and transsexual prisoners). Benefits also arise from the methodology employed in the research. As we have said elsewhere in this application, Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is not negatively focused, thus it identifies both good and poor practice; this twin focus allows staff not to feel negated by research (a common response to more problem focused research approaches) and it also enables them to engage positively with changing practices that are not working or are harmful.
PRISONERS: benefit from the research in a wide range of ways. Those involved in Prisoner Advisory Groups (PAG) in individual establishments benefit from ongoing involvement in a project that aims to help prisons improve their responses to diversity. Prisoner involvement in these groups is not passive; our experience shows that their involvement in PAGs is engaged, committed and positive. Prisoners respond more positively in their regimes having participated in groups where their experience and comments are valued and influential. Prisoner research participants benefit from having time to speak to people outside the prison system about their experiences. More widely, prisoner populations, in and beyond the participating prisons, will benefit from the improved responses to diversity that will emerge from this research at local, regional and national levels.
THIRD SECTOR ORGANISATIONS/CHARITIES PARTNERING WITH PRISONS: such as penal reform charities, Age Concern, Yorkshire MESMAC, Disability Alliance will benefit from the knowledge generated about diversity in prisons