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:
Smith, L. (2023). Losing Faith in the Service: A path to disenchantment among Governor Grades.
Ward, S & Smith, L. (2023). Burnout Among UK Prison officers: The relationship with PTSD, depression and resilience. Sydney Ward is a current MSc student who has had a summary of her UG dissertation published.
Smith, L. (2023). Promoting Staff Wellbeing within HMPPS: Interview with Chris Jennings. Chris Jennings is an Executive Director for HMPPS with portfolio responsibility for the wellbeing of prison staff.
On 30th Aug – 1st Sept 2023, Ross Bartels and Hannah Merdian presented at the 17thIATSO conference in Trondheim (Norway).
Ross presented the findings of a study designed and conducted with Federico Vanni (a previous intern from the University of Padua). The talk was entitled “Do the Sexual Fantasies of Minor-Attracted People Differ Depending on the Target?”.
As an Editor-in-Chief for IATSO’s journal (SOTRAP), Ross also attended the editors meeting at the conference.
Hannah presented a talk showcasing findings from a collaborative project with ‘Stop it Now – Scotland‘. The talk was entitled “Stop It Now! Scotland – Database analysis and development of data quality standards“.
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.
In March 2023, DrHannah Merdian and Dr Lauren Smith (FCRG deputy),along with other colleagues, have received funding from the Lincoln Policy Hub to support a project entitled “Tackling Online Harms: Rapid Evidence Assessment on Parental or Parental-Supported interventions”. The project is part of an existing partnership with Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Partnership.
FCRG members Lauren Smith, Todd Hogue, and Tochukwu Onwuegbusi, along with colleagues in the School of Law , Health and Social Care, and the Lincoln International Business School have been awarded just over £154,000 for a HMPPS contract to evaluate Commissioned Rehabilitative Services, valued at just over £150,000!
