Quantifying Criminalized Survivors in California Prisons
Client | Stanford Law School
Stanford University needed a violence expert to design and implement a study
Professors Deborah Mukamal and David Sklansky from Stanford Law School were perplexed when New York Times writer, Rachel Louise Snyder said we don’t know how many women are incarcerated for killing an abusive partner. In need of a violence expert, Stanford was referred to us through our connection with Jacquelyn Campbell, creator of the Danger Assessment. In 2020 Stanford Law School hired us to develop a survey that could quantify how many women who are incarcerated for murder/manslaughter were victims of IPV at/near the time of the offense. As a full-service research consultancy, it was a no-brainer for Stanford Law School to hire us again in 2022, this time to design, implement, and write up the study results. We’re incredibly proud to lend our expertise to support the Regilla Project.
How It Began
Looking for an Expert
Deborah and David are legal experts at Stanford, who both worked with and studied criminalized survivors of violence. Deborah, a master at relationship-building, was connected with local organizations serving formerly-incarcerated people. She was able to secure permission with California Department of Collections to access the population. However, she knew having a gender-based violence expert on the team was necessary for their project’s success.
Incarcerated people have special protections in human subjects research, and getting IRB approval can be challenging. The risk for coercion is greater, as there are concerns as to whether they can truly provide voluntary and informed consent, given the power dynamics inherent in carceral environments. Privacy and confidentiality can be challenging in correctional settings where surveillance is pervasive. Moreover, people who have experienced violence have trauma histories that may increase risk and require thoughtful protocols to minimize potential harm.
Deborah sought guidance from Rogue Scholar to design the survey, IRB application, implementation plan, and help with data collection, as well as guide the team through analysis and dissemination. Having years of experience conducting studies on violence with incarcerated people, Rogue Scholar was an ideal partner. In 2022, we were honored to become Director of Research for the Regilla Project at Stanford Law School..
The Solution
Hands-on attention & collaboration
With the survey designed and approved in 2020, our next task was getting IRB approval from THREE separate review boards. The Stanford IRB was concerned that asking questions about violence may upset or traumatize participants. We provided Deborah with research that shows surveying violence survivors did not increase risk and was in fact therapeutic that she could show the IRB.
The prison’s research office, the second level of approval, wanted our protocol to minimize burden on prison staff and that we had a plan for when/if participants became upset. Leveraging Deborah’s relationship-building superpowers, we developed a plan that used internal and external prison service provides to distribute recruitment flyers and coordinate after-care services the day of and weeks after data collection. Additionally, we developed and delivered a training for the data collection staff on how to conduct research with traumatized populations.
Next, we worked with Deborah to address concerns from the California State Department of Correction’s Human Subjects Office about privacy, and data use and protection agreements. Specifically, we provided a plan to anonymize data collection and ensure prison staff were not able to view survey results. We also filled out a lot of paperwork to get data sharing agreements in place!
Our last task was coordinating and conducting data collection. We provided Deborah with a data collection protocol that fit prison regulations, including the following:
list of what to bring for data collection, such as tablets, surveys, snacks, folders, power cords, etc. and a plan for how to transport all study materials
system to account for everything coming in and out of the prison-- down to every sheet of paper and each pencil!
strategy to ensure that tablets used to collect responses could be operated without wifi
diagram of how data collection would be set up including an estimation of staff that were needed and the maximum number of many participants that could be seen in a day
staff training that included human subjects protections and scripts for recruitment and consenting participants
and more!
Quick Stats
Dissemination
Findings released this summer
While our project began with a simple question—how many women in prison are incarcerated for killing their abuser, we quickly realized the answer was an immensely more complicated. We can’t divulge the results as they are embargoed until its exclusive release in the New York Times, but we can describe our role in dissemination.
Data Analysis + Report Writing
Deborah, through her policy lab, had access to six brilliant Stanford Law Students who helped with data analysis and report writing. Rogue Scholar supporting analysis in the following ways:
Data management, including multiple survey administrations and file types that required linking and merging
Data cleaning, transforming variables, and preparation for analysis
Planning and interpreting quantitative data analyses
Training staff on qualitative data analysis
Designing a qualitative coding scheme and plans for inter-coder reliability
Authoring the methods section
Writing the discussion and editing the entire report
External Expert Review
Since the report would be published by Stanford Law School’s Criminal Justice Center, it would not have external review by experts. Rogue Scholar leveraged its network to provide external, expert review:
Convene a meeting of violence experts to review findings
Contribute to the presentation to experts
Address critiques of the experts
Find an experienced reviewer who would provide a peer review of the report
Address critiques raised by the peer reviewer
Release Plans
From the start, Deborah and David’s intention was for this project to change the criminal-legal landscape regarding how criminalized survivors are treated. While most academic researchers would simply publish an article and present it at a conference, Deborah had bigger plans. Rogue Scholar supported post-release plans in the following ways:
Work with NYT reporter for a write-up
Participate in media requests
Lead revising the report into a manuscript suitable for publishing
Assist in convening a round table discussion for solutions with criminal-legal professionals, violence experts, and other stakeholders Convene a meeting of violence experts to review findings
Stay tuned for release of the report this summer and our featured article in the New York Times!
If you need a violence expert, or an experienced professional to help design or implement your study, contact us now.
We offer tailored solutions, including doing the research for you or collaborating with you on a project.
