Building and Sustaining Academic Researcher and Criminal Justice Practitioner Partnerships: A Corrections Example

Reflecting on Researcher/Practice Relationships in Prison Research: A Contact Hypothesis Lens

“…For the practice partner, these benefits include access to methodological expertise (e.g. evaluation methods) (Drawbridge et al, 2018;Clodfelter et al, 2014;Nilson et al, 2014;Secret et al, 2011;Cunningham, 2008), extra resource or expertise in areas where there is limited capacity (Clodfelter et al, 2014;Nilson et al, 2014;Cunningham, 2008), information which helps improve services and decision making (Nilson et al, 2014) and intellectual stimulation (Cunningham, 2008). There are noted benefits for the academic partner also.…”

“…There are noted benefits for the academic partner also. The partnerships provide an opportunity for researchers to apply knowledge to real life problems/testing and refining theories in situ (Drawbridge et al, 2018;Clodfelter et al, 2014;Nilson et al, 2014). A better understanding of practice environment for both researchers and students is developed (Kerrison et al, 2019;Clodfelter et al, 2014) and researchers are able to collect data from the field and new and alternative data sources (Nilson et al, 2014).…”

“…However, achieving these benefits is challenging. Logistically, challenges lie in limited human resources available in the CJS partner to support the influx of researchers into the institution (Drawbridge et al, 2018) and incompatibility of researchers and practice partners working schedules (Clodfelter et al, 2014). A high turn over of research students and staff entering CJS institutions can disrupt services interfering with their consistency and routine (Cunningham, 2008).…”

“…Challenges often come down to a fundamental lack of trust between academic and practice sectors, practice organisations being concerned about the confidentiality of information they provide researchers (Nilson et al, 2014;Kerrison et al, 2019) and fear that researchers won't present the full practice picture (Kerrison et al, 2019). They fear any innovation and departures arising from the research may threaten their local political and historical status quo even costing them their jobs (Drawbridge et al, 2018;Kerrison et al, 2019). At the end of the day, practitioners feel they, and not the researcher, will be held ultimately accountable for any impact of the research on practice both negative and positive (Kerrison et al, 2019).…”

“…At the end of the day, practitioners feel they, and not the researcher, will be held ultimately accountable for any impact of the research on practice both negative and positive (Kerrison et al, 2019). On the other hand, researchers feel frustrated that practice is not always ready to hear the outcome of evaluations and that their research recommendations are not taken up (Drawbridge et al, 2018). A lack of researcher support during the implementation of their own recommendations is often blamed for this (Kerrison et al, 2019).…”