Congratulations Lauren Smith and Rachael Mason for publishing a new book on the prison governor’s wellbeing, along with Karen Harrison and Helen Nichols!!! Grab your copy now!
Harrison, K., Mason, R., Nichols, H. & Smith, L. (2024). Work, Culture and Wellbeing Among Prison Governors in England and Wales. Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-57433-7.
Congrats to Dr Tochukwu (Tochs) Onwuegbusi and Prof Todd Hogue who, together with an ex-student and an ex-Lincoln colleague, have had a paper on the validity of the Attitudes Towards Sex Offenders Scale (ATS) published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology.
Negative attitudes toward offenders may hinder the rehabilitation process. The present study examines the relationship between attitudes toward sex offenders and stated acceptance of offenders and non-offenders into various aspects of daily life. Sixty female members of the public (18–50 years old, UK residents, recruited by word of mouth and via social media) completed an attitudes towards sex offenders (ATS) scale and indicated for each of eight vignettes describing ex-offenders and non-offenders whether they would accept them in various situations (housing, employment, day-to-day activities). Results indicate that in this group of female participants, harsher attitudes toward sex offenders are associated with lower acceptance of sex offenders (around 50% less acceptance) and other offenders (around 25% less acceptance), but not non-offenders, suggesting a tight coupling between attitudes and acceptance. The observed coupling between attitudes toward sex offenders and acceptance of offenders suggests that it will be difficult to change one without changing the other.
Rawson, L., Hermens, F., Onwuegbusi, T., & Hogue, T. (2024). The construct validity of Attitudes towards Sex Offenders (ATS) scale: ATS is more strongly linked to the acceptance of sex offenders than other offenders or non-offenders. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.13031
Congrats to Dr Lauren Smith who has had an article (with her colleagues) published .
Abstract
The wellbeing of prison governors has received little attention in penological research to date. The findings of this research reveal that governors’ wellbeing is negatively impacted by a dominant Masculinity Contest Culture (MCC) permeating through the organisation. While MCC negatively contributes to governors’ wellbeing, they continue to engage in hegemonic masculine performances to show no weakness to cope with the pressures of working life. This has led to the emergence of a ‘hyper-MCC’ which we define as an overperformance of the MCC social script that is seen as a requirement to cope within an increasingly challenging workplace. The implications of hyper-MCC are a perpetuation of a toxic working culture and a reduced likelihood of engaging with wellbeing services. The response needs to be developing the right types of support that can attempt to re-frame dominant masculine working cultures, challenge hyper-MCC performances and remove the individualised responsibility of wellbeing away from the workforce themselves. However, this cultural shift will only be effective if coupled with a meaningful reconsideration of working conditions, which have resulted in the intensification of workloads and practices.
Nichols, H., Saunders, G., Harrison, K., Mason, R., Smith, L., & Hall, L. (2024). It’s not ok to not be ok . . . when you’re a prison governor: The impact of workplace culture on prison governors’ wellbeing in England, Scotland and Wales. Incarceration, 5. https://doi.org/10.1177/26326663241253698
Dr Lauren Smith and Rachael Mason, along with Roger Bretherton and Karen Harrison have had an external report published online (11th March). The report is entitled Review of the Spark Inside Coaching Programme for Prison Staff. The news article and access to the report can be found here.
The team also took part in a knowledge exchange event about the evaluation findings with Spark Inside, HM Prison and Probation Service, and the Ministry of Justice. It is hoped the work will lead to further evaluation work of other Spark Inside programmes and to increased funding and opportunity for Spark Inside within prisons.
Dr Matthew King-Parker (along with Dr Ross Bartels, Dr Tochs Onwuegbusi, and Dr Patrick Dickinson) has published an multi-study article examining the burglary scripts in a sample of community-based participants. Study 1 (N = 113) reports the development of a a Burglary Script Assessment. Many participants, despite having never committed a burglary, were found to hold a burglary script containing expert-like knowledge. Also, greater script detail was associated with a proclivity to enact the script. Study 2 (N = 44) examined whether scripts based on four different motivations correlated with a relevant construct. It was found that burglary scripts motivated by desperation and thrill were correlated with burglary distortions and sensation-seeking, respectively. Finally, Study 3 (N = 146) found that engaging in mental imagery about a burglary increased script detail, relative to a no imagery group. These results offer new insights into burglary scripts, providing implications for understanding the risk of committing burglary.
King-Parker, M. T., Bartels, R. M., Onwuegbusi, T., & Dickinson, P. (2024). Examining Burglary Scripts in Community-Based Samples. Deviant Behavior, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2024.2315109
Prof Todd Hogue, Dr Lauren Smith, and Dr Tochs Onwuegbusi have completed a report for the Police and Crime Commissioner for Lincolnshire:
Hogue, T.E., Smith, L., Mason, R., & Onwuegbusi, T. (Oct, 2023). An Evaluation of the Safer Together Team, Unpublished Report, University of Lincoln.
Prof Todd Hogue and Dr Lauren Smith have had an article published with a previous MSc Forensic Psychology student (Niamh Reeson) that reports qualitative findings from a study examining the perceptions of effectiveness in those working within ARC (Assisting Rehabilitation through Collaboration) in Lincolnshire. From interview data, six key themes were generated relating to the perceived effectiveness of ARC; the ARC Cohort; ARC staff; barriers; outcomes; partnerships; and the wider policing staff.
Reeson, N., Smith, L., & Hogue, T. E. (2023). A Thematic Analysis of the Effectiveness of The Assisting Rehabilitation through Collaboration (ARC) Programme. The Police Journal, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X231211478.
Dr Lauren Smith and colleagues in the prison governor well-being team have contributed to a newly published special edition of The Prison Service Journal on prison staff well-being.
The full edition (September 2023, No 268) can be accessed here:
It includes the following articles:
FCRG member Phil Willmot, along with ex-MSc student Alex Mason, has published a new study in the Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology entitled ‘Institutional Firesetting in a Forensic Inpatient Population’
In the study, the characteristics and firesetting histories of 32 patients with histories of institutional firesetting in a secure psychiatric unit in the UK were examined. Only six patients (18.8%) had a prior conviction for firesetting, while a further eight (25.0%) had a history of firesetting but no conviction. All institutional firesetting was carried out alone, most commonly in a cell or bedroom. Institutional firesetting was significantly more common among patients with a diagnosis of personality disorder than among those with a diagnosis of mental illness.
The results are consistent with the M-TTAF trajectories model of firesetting. Different patterns of firesetting may emerge in institutional settings because firesetting may be one of an extremely limited repertoire of problem solving strategies and may be inadvertently reinforced in these settings. These results suggest that there may be a subgroup of institutional firesetters with no previous history of firesetting and this is a group that merits more detailed study.
FCRG members, Dr Tochukwu Onwuegbusi and Prof Todd Hogue (along with Prof Amanda Roberts and an ex-Lincoln colleague) have a published a new paper entitled “An Eye Tracking Investigation of Young People’s Gaze Behaviour to Gambling and Non-Gambling Moving Adverts” in the journal European Addiction Research.
The study involved applying a novel data-driven methodology (that directly tracks eye movements) to reveal attentional biases towards gambling adverts and promotions by examining differences in young people’s eye gaze behaviour when watching gambling and non-gambling (control) moving adverts. The results showed that the new data-driven method can: (1) isolate video clips that best distinguish people on the low-high craving spectrum, (2) reveal the type of each video clip with the largest group differences, and (3) accurately predict young people’s gambling craving on the basis of eye movement patterns.