Ethical and legal standards for research in prisons

Abstract

Biobehavioral research, especially that which is conducted with prisoners, has become much more closely regulated in the last 30 years. State and federal law, as well as professional standards, regulate the conduct of many types of research; in the case of prisoners, this regulation is even more stringent. However, currently no mandatory, uniform, national regulatory or oversight process exists, and many privately funded research endeavors are operating in a regulatory void. In response to this, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission has argued for the creation of a single, national, independent regulatory body to oversee all human participant research, regardless of funding source. As ethicolegal research standards evolve alongside advances in science and technology, an appreciation of the history of prisoner research and an awareness of current standards is critical to conducting ethical prison research.

Conducting research in corrections: challenges and solutions

“…The challenges of conducting research in corrections have been well documented (Brewer-Smyth, 2008;Kalmbach & Lyons, 2003;Quina et al, 2007) and the need for developing a research infrastructure has been duly noted (Magaletta et al, 2007;Trestman, 2005). Simply documenting the concerns, however, does not bring us any closer to conducting applied research and implementing evidence-based practices to provide effective treatment to inmates.…”

“…In the 1950s and 1960s state and federal prisons allowed researchers, particularly those from the pharmaceutical industry, to conduct studies including the introduction of infectious hepatitis, syphilis, or cancer to otherwise healthy individuals (Hornblum, 1997) with little or no oversight or meaningful informed consent process. In the early 1970s, the vast majority of drug toxicity trials and investigational new drug trials were conducted using inmates as research subjects (Hoffman, 2000;Kalmbach & Lyons, 2003). The Nuremberg Code, the Tuskegee Study, the Belmont Report and the establishment of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research contributed to the federal government essentially banning research with prisoners in 1978.…”

Relational vulnerability and the research process with former prisoners in Athens, Georgia (USA)

“…Legal studies (e.g. hoffman, 2000;Kalmbach & Lyons, 2003;McCarthy, 1989) and commentaries in clinical research fields (e.g. Lerner, 2007;Levine et al, 2004;McDermott, 2013) consistently argue that categorical vulnerability and its application are generally misaligned with societal needs.…”

“…People in prisons are unambiguously vulnerable. For example, prisoners have been exposed to various harms -including death -as part of twentieth century medical research in the United States that engaged participants with: cholera, pellagra, gonorrhoea, gas gangrene, dengue fever, malaria, herpes, pappataci fever and sleeping sickness; injections of blood from beef cattle, testicular transplants and testicular radiation, plutonium injections, and radiation exposure (hornblum, 1997;Kalmbach & Lyons, 2003;Lerner, 2007). Two cohorts of political reactions -what I term the post-nuremberg and post-Belmont eras of research -are central to understanding categorical vulnerability's evolution and placement within the prison.…”

Hoping Against Hope: The Prison-to-Community Transition Experience of Men With Co-Occurring Severe Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorder

“…This resulted in some extreme human rights abuse such as introducing diseases to otherwise healthy individuals, for example, for the purposes of experimentation by the pharmaceutical industry (Hornblum, 1997). In addition, researchers in the past have been guilty of failing to ensure the participation by prisoners in research was truly voluntary and that confidentiality was maintained (Appelbaum, 2008;Hornblum, 1997;Kalmbach & Lyons, 2003). The responsibility of the researcher is to protect subjects from any harm that may result from participation in the research (Loxley, Hawks, & Bevan, 1992).…”