Our Approach
In RaRiE, we’re using a multi-methods design within and across the three jurisdictions. Deploying a ‘constant comparison inquiry’ approach (Maxwell, 2012) to data analysis will ensure that different kinds of data generated are interpreted iteratively, with each part of the project in dialogue with the others (both within and across the countries).
As we noted in outlining our work, the project will build datasets and employ software to allow analysis of vertical consistency and coherence (within each country) and to analyse horizontal similarity and difference (between countries) in each work package. Initial insights from WPs1-3 will inform and shape the approach to WP4 (for example, including the sampling strategy and the interview and workshop designs).
In both the ‘vertical’ and the ‘horizontal’ aspects of our analysis, we will be using (and perhaps developing) the 6-forms of rehabilitation model that Fergus initially developed (as the 4-forms model) and which Alejandro Rubio Arnal adapted in his PhD thesis and subsequent work. These 6 forms include:
- Personal rehabilitation, meaning any activity that focuses on enabling changes within the individual to support desistance from offending.
- Legal rehabilitation concerns when and how citizenship rights are formally restored.
- Moral rehabilitation concerns reconciliation with or reparation to victims of crime and to communities. It also refers to moral debts that might be owed to the ‘offender’ (for example, by the state).
- Social rehabilitation relates to recognition and acceptance of the returning citizen by others.
- Material rehabilitation refers to the provision of material resources necessary for subsistence (for example, housing and a basic income) and hence for reintegration.
- Civic-political rehabilitation stresses the importance of participation in civic and political life, for example through volunteering and through voting or other forms of political expression and involvement.
In each country, creative workshops (in WP4) will engage diverse participants in exploring, representing and communicating their understandings and experiences of rehabilitation, and these artworks will be used in dialogues within and between countries.
Perhaps to most significant innovation, however, is the development of what we term Dialogical Comparative Penology (DCP). In simple terms, this means that, rather than leaving the task of comparison to the researchers, we aim to gather together some of our participants to share in this task.
Initially, DCP will be developed in and through online workshops bringing people together from across the three countries. These DCP workshops will be facilitated by Fergus, Miranda and Thomas, with support from the rest of the team. Towards the end of the project, we hope to enable a small number of participants to travel with us between the countries, taking part in events in Glasgow, Oslo and Leiden, where we will share key insights from and outputs of the project.
