Background to the Study

At the outset of this research project, I had intended to conduct intensive research of prison gangs at a single adult men’s prison in Greater Manchester; I hoped that conducting research in one bounded field-site would act as a valuable contribution to the canon of criminological scholarship. To explore the feasibility of my planned research, I consulted a wide range of individuals, ranging from personal contacts to members of prison management at my intended sample site. With the help of my supervisor, I had a face-to-face meeting with a former Governor of HMP Manchester. I was also in e-mail correspondence with the prison’s psychologist, members of HMP Manchester’s management, and members of NOMS’ National Research Committee. Through contacting these individuals, I was able to refine my proposed research methodology and the parameters within which I would conduct fieldwork.

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Eventually, I conducted a one-week pilot study at HMP Manchester; this acted as a ‘scoping’ exercise, introducing me to the prison and potential participants, as well as allowing me to further gauge whether the proposed research was feasible. Later in this chapter, I discuss my experiences during the pilot study, which allowed me to discuss the research topic with prisoners, prison officers, and other members of prison staff. By coincidence, I had also become friends with a former police officer from the region, who was enrolled on my course at the University of Cambridge. I was able to gain a further perspective on my proposed research by discussing my plans with this former officer; he was also able to offer me ideas and referred me to ‘contacts’ in the region – individuals I would later contact to facilitate fieldwork. Through this preparatory work, it became apparent that gangs were a serious problem in contemporary Greater Manchester, and that a multitude of gang members existed at Manchester Prison. However, it also became clear that practical considerations would make it unlikely for me to be able to conduct a prolonged period of research solely at one prison. For example, several individuals emphasized that limited resources – such as the decreasing numbers of staff across English prisons – would make it difficult to spend an extensive amount of time at one site. Many of these observations were underscored by my pilot study, which I describe later. For example, it became clear that solely interviewing gang members, or indeed, prisoners, would not expose me to the varied perspectives needed for the collection of valid data. Bearing all these potential barriers in mind, I reframed the research so that it became a ‘multi-sited’ study, a mode of study which “takes unexpected trajectories in tracing a cultural formation across and within multiple sites of activity” (Marcus 1995:96). By this point, I envisaged my study to involve conducting fieldwork across two prisons, as well as on the streets of Greater Manchester.

There was wide agreement that this planned research in its reconstituted format could lead to the collection of a substantial set of data. I also decided to include the perspectives of prison officers and those in the wider community who had knowledge of gangs. Reframing the project included arranging interviews with active street gang members, ex-offenders, youth workers and other members of the community. As Scott and Garner (2012) note, interviewing for criminological research usually involves interacting with populations whose members are actively engaged in illegal practices and living on the margins of society; therefore, it will not always be easy to generate or maintain contact with such individuals. Time was taken, then, to forge links, develop contacts and ensure that a wide number of individuals in the relevant communities were aware of my proposed research. These methods of sampling have previously

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been used when researching gangs and are bolstered when a member of the community volunteers to act as the ‘gatekeeper’ for the research (see, e.g., Venkatesh 2008; Densley 2013). However, there was still the question of which prisons I would choose as the primary sites for my research. This was something I continued to explore, whilst at the same time making progress regarding the street component of my fieldwork. Studies of street gangs and groups engaged in illegal activities are classified as being ‘restricted entry social situations’: social environments which are highly difficult to observe or enter due to the nature of acts taking place (Spradley 1980:50). This was borne in mind throughout fieldwork. I aimed to overcome some of these problems through conducting fieldwork at several sites in the region. I planned to collect data that would include information about both street and prison gangs; this was consistent with my aim for this research to link the prison and ‘the street’. Therefore, I began making plans to combine my prison-based research with street-interviews to enrich the value of the gathered data.

From early in the study, I decided to frame the body of my research in accordance with appreciative inquiry and humanistic research principles. As a theoretical model, appreciative inquiry seeks to involve participants in self-determined change (see, e.g. Bushe 2013). When applied specifically to penological research, it ensures that research reflects ‘I-thou’ rather than ‘I-it’ relationships (Liebling 2015), ensuring that communications between researchers and participants are “direct, equal, non-judgmental and giving relationships with the whole person rather than with only one aspect of them or with an identity that has been ascribed to them” (Ludlow 2015). I discovered that many similarities exist between the appreciative and the humanist perspective. Indeed, criminologists such as Toch posit that the humanist perspective should pervade all aspects of prison life, affecting everything from the running of the prison regime to staff-prisoner interactions. Toch (1997:72) states that, “the word community … denotes the climate that we would need to generate fellow feeling amongst prisoners and open lines of communication between prisoners and staff … prisoners must feel comfortable about sharing information with staff about what is happening to them. In a cops and robbers atmosphere this cannot be done”. Although Toch specifically describes the relations between staff and prisoners, the wider point is something which influenced my research from the outset: that the research should be based around dialogue and openness rather than suspicion, viewing prisoners as equals, and listening rather than judging. As I outline later in this chapter, some of these viewpoints were different to the institutional cultures of the sample sites. However, I

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persevered in shaping my research methodology and wider conduct with such principles in mind. These ethical principles shaped my conduct during fieldwork, and the analysis.