Institute of Criminology

Prisons Research Centre


The Prisons Research Centre was founded in 2000, under the Directorship of Professor Alison Liebling. The Centre has received funding from a wide range of sources, including the Prison Service/NOMS, the Nuffield Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, the ESRC, KPMG, the Home Office and UKDS (now Kalyx).

The PRC Team
The Prisons Research Centre Team.

PRC Members Include:

Rebecca Raffan Gowar is the Centre's administrator (part-time).
Associate members include Dr. Adrian Grounds and Dr. Joel Harvey.

The Centre aims to provide a stimulating research environment in which a coherent strategy of research and integration between funded and non-funded, and between applied and theoretical projects, can be facilitated. We are striving to consolidate and enhance the Cambridge Institute of Criminology's strengths in prison research, and its capacity to collaborate with others. Since its inception, the Centre has generated funding for four full-time and several part-time research staff. We hope that the long-term and integrated nature of the work being conducted will provide 'added value' to the prisons research community. The overarching theme of the research programme being undertaken is the project 'Shaping Prison Life'.

View From a Prison Cell

Advisory Board

Members of the advisory board include senior practitioners and academics: Professor Sir Anthony Bottoms, (Cambridge Institute of Criminology), Professor Richard Sparks (University of Edinburgh), Professor Fergus McNeill (University of Glasgow), Professor Shadd Maruna (Queens University, Belfast), Juliet Lyon (Director, Prison Reform Trust), Michael Spurr (Chief Executive, NOMS), Ian Poree ( Director – Commissioning and Commercial, NOMS), Joyce Drummond-Hill (Head of Internal Audit, NOMS), Jo Bailey (Head of Psychological Services, NOMS).


Current Research

Among the current research being undertaken or written up within the centre are a major ESRC-funded study of values, practices and outcomes in public and private sector corrections, and a study of staff-prisoner relationships in HMP Whitemoor.

Further details of the former can be found on the following page on the ESRC website:


A brief summary of the findings of this study has been published in a recent issue of the Prison Service Journal


An article on ‘Staff culture, use of authority and prisoner quality of life in public and private sector prisons’ has also been published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, with an accompanying podcast:

A short video introducing the MQPL prison survey can be seen here:

ESRC Prisons from David Martin on Vimeo.

This clip was part of a video by the ESRC Celebrating Science: Alison Liebling, Ben Crewe and Michael Spurr talk about a PRC survey and its value


A number of further publications will be forthcoming.


Publications

Among the other recent outputs of the centre are the following:



The SAGE Handbook of Punishment and Society

Liebling, A., Price, D. and Shefer G. (2010) The Prison Officer (second edition). Cullompton: Willan

Professor Liebling served as a witness for the House of Commons Justice Committee inquiry into the role of the Role of the Prison Officer (2008-09), and several other members of the PRC provided written submissions.
Professor Liebling’s testimony can be watched here: Parliament Live - HoC Justice Committee : Wilson Room.

The testimony, and the written submissions, are also documented in the official report: Role of the Prison Officer; Twelfth Report of Session 2008-09 .


Liebling, A. with Arnold, H. (2004) Prisons and their Moral Performance: A Study of Values, Quality and Prison Life. Oxford: Clarendon. 


Crewe, B. (2009) The Prisoner Society: Power, Adaptation and Resistance in an English Prison. Oxford: Clarendon. 


Bennett, J., Crewe, B. and Wahidin, A. (2008) Understanding Prison Staff. Cullompton: Willan. 

Information on members' research can be found on their individual webpages, which can be accessed via the people link in the menu bar on the left of the page, or by clicking on their highlighted name in the list above.


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