High security prisons have fundamentally changed: at one, 40 per cent of its population are Muslim. Half of this number converted whilst in prison. 55 per cent are Black or mixed race; 97 per cent are serving sentences of over 10 years. Most are held many years beyond their tariff, or expected punishment. Many prisoners are starting to regard their sentences as unexpected and illegitimate. In a recent study, we described this prison as 'paralysed by distrust'. In theoretical shorthand, staff do not 'recognise' their 'audience' any more. It is impossible to 'place trust intelligently' among a population you are afraid of. Unvalidated 'intelligence' has replaced close connection between staff and prisoners. This is the opposite of 'dynamic security', on which order in prison depends. There are explanations for this transformation, related to social change outside: drastically lengthening sentences; the growing number of people imprisoned for offences related to terrorism, a changing political and policy climate, in which growth-related activities are regarded as 'pampering', and concerns about faith-related discrimination. Staff are not well informed about the differences between authentic faith practices and bids for power. Prisoners at early stages in long sentences undergo a kind of 'existential crisis', and the only part of the prison where life has not been severely constrained is at Friday prayers, which 120 men attend each Friday. One prisoner put it thus: The best way to be able to feel that you can trust anyone in here is to be a Muslim ... like I said, it's a proper temptation. It's the best thing in here, really... It's the only place in the prison where there's love, where there's trust, where there's real friendships, loyalty, any of them type of things. The other social change is managerialism, which has transformed the knowledge base of prison managers, and brought about an almost exclusive focus on risk. The prison could not be more relevant to the understanding of British society. Six of the cases of known terrorist acts in the UK have involved young men who converted to Islam in prison. On the other hand, many prisoners are drawn to faith in prison to resolve questions of meaning, hope and identity: faith scripts can be transformative. Networks and relationships in prison shape these dynamics. Our hypothesis is that in a risk-dominated, low trust climate in which meaning is scarce, faith scripts can become transformative in the wrong direction. Where some trust flows, faith can be part of a positive change trajectory. This territory is politically contested, risky and extremely difficult to study. The American author of the only credible study on radicalisation in prison says, this field is 'bereft of social science methodologies'. We think prison sociology - which has always explored prisoner sub-cultures, hierarchies and leadership, but rarely mentioned faith - needs theology, and that this bringing together of two disciplines would transform and humanise our understanding of the prison in ways that are of deep significance to our fractured inner city communities. Our argument is that risk dominance and exclusion is practically disastrous and efforts at recognition and intelligent trust, undertaken clear-headedly, improve most outcomes that senior managers and the public might reasonably care about. We have been developing highly effective methods for testing this hypothesis: ethnography-led measurement. It depends on slow entry into the field, the use of Appreciative Inquiry: a creative method aimed at soliciting peak experiences and capturing what is there (so where is respect or trust found) rather than what is missing; dialogue; and 'reserved participation'; gradually organised long interviews, and then this becomes measurement. Prisoners (and staff) help us to identify what matters, to find the right language, to operationalise and explore the relevant concepts.

The proposed research will investigate processes of resilience in families who have experienced the imprisonment of the father. Building on a unique data set from a recent longitudinal study which gathered information from prisoners, their (ex)partners and children during and after imprisonment, this study will examine individual and family-wide coping processes and experiences of social (re)integration approximately six years after the father's release from prison. In contrast to most existing research, the study will not focus only on risk factors for problematic adaptation but put particular emphasis on protective functions of family relationships and support networks in the face of multiple risks to well-being (e.g. criminal behaviour, health problems, alcohol and drug misuse, school or employment problems, and social disintegration). The data will be used in part to test and further develop a family-oriented process model of resilience that can inform social policy and the development of practice.

COVID-19 is a particular challenge within the prison setting given the vulnerable nature of the population (in terms of emotional dysregulation, mental health difficulties, rates of suicide, self harm and violence); the characteristics of individuals (e.g. high rates of BAME) and the physical conditions (e.g. difficulties of introducing social distancing without the potential for exclusion). This research uses a carefully selected subgroup (those accessing the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway across 34 prison sites) as a case study from which to generalise across the prison context. The combination of quantitative methods (using linear mixed modelling to examine extensive and existing data) and qualitative research (based on interviews with a purposive sample) will enable this research to determine a) the impacts of prison restrictions implemented in response to COVID-19 and the subsequent easing of these on psychological and behavioral outcomes and b) to identify key factors associated with differences in response to restrictions / easing. Understanding and learning from the impact of COVID-19 and the resultant management responses within prisons is essential in order to identify how to build resilience in readiness for further restrictive measures which may be needed during subsequent 'outbreak waves'. Such findings will also have long term implications with regard to effective practices in the context of a return to standard operating status which might enhance the existing prison regime. Finally, this research will also allow us to examine whether certain groups (e.g. ethnic groups) experience a disproportionate impact in prison, as occurs in the wider/non-prison community.

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.

Recidivism is one of the greatest socio-economic burdens the UK currently faces. At an estimated total cost of £18.1 billion a year, prison re-entry places a substantial burden on the national economy. This exacerbates reoffending's associated societal costs, including deviance, unstable communities and displacement. There is a 48% chance that an offender will go on to re-offend within a 12-month period, worsening the current prison overcrowding crisis, which is associated with severe mental health issues and a spread in infectious diseases. Re-offending rates are currently stable in the UK, providing an ideal time to conduct research into reducing them and the burden they place on the economy and wider civil society. We already know that powerful group identities lead people to enact extraordinary behaviours for their groups - from hardcore football fans travelling the globe for a game to gang members committing atrocities against their rivals. Can this problem be turned on its head to provide a solution? Can group passion be harnessed for the social good? More specifically, how can we foster positive social identities that are powerful enough to re-write offenders' self-narratives? I will apply the theoretical framework of 'identity fusion' - an intense, lasting form of social bonding - to prison populations. For the first time, this research integrates literatures on fusion to sports identities (as a catalyst for reform), shared experiences, women's roles in offending communities as well as men's, and approaches to intervention implementation. The proposed seven-year research project crosses disciplines and methodologies, and has secured support from major non-academic partners to address these questions, including the MoJ, HMPPS and the Twinning Project - a nationwide intervention that pairs major football clubs with prisons and gives football-industry training and sustainable social identities to prisoners. Primarily informed by anthropology, psychology and criminology, the project will create novel tools using cross-cultural practices, which can be applied nationwide to affect positive, viable societal change. This research is further supported by two postdoctoral researchers, a core team of carefully selected mentors, and five additional UK and international collaborators. Crucially, I focus on women within this framework - as pivotal actors within both the justice system and the communities that receive ex-offenders - though they are much neglected in both the literatures on identity fusion and re-offending. Despite representing just 5% of offenders, women account for a disproportionately high cost to the criminal justice system: policing females alone is estimated at £1bn a year. Nonetheless, they are also a particularly vulnerable population: 60% will have experienced domestic violence, around 25% have dependent children, and many of them self-harm (five times as many as men). As a recognised expert on social bonding and violence among football fans, I will draw upon my theoretical and applied knowledge to analyse existing interventions, design a toolkit for future interventions, and implement the researched practices in particularly vulnerable and critical populations (e.g. female and young offenders). This project will afford me recognition as a world leader in my field and help to grow a team of inter-disciplinary researchers, united by a passion to tackle reoffending.