Prison settings prove valuable

Over the years, valid concerns have been raised as to whether research should be allowed in prison settings, based on ethical problems in the past and the fact that prisoners inherently have less free will while incarcerated. However, a University of Iowa, Ames, study indicates that even prisoners with mental illness, compared to healthy non-prisoners, generally are competent to decide to participate in a study and do not feel coerced. The findings raise the question whether prisoners, while needing to be shielded from being treated unethically as a population of convenience, theoretically have been overprotected from taking part in research that eventually could benefit them.

"Our study reveals we didn't find overt coercion among prisoners, and that nearly every prisoner, with one exception, was competent to make a decision about participating in research," relates David Moser, assistant professor of psychiatry in the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and the study's lead investigator. "However, although the prisoners were competent, their scores showed they generally were not as competent as the control subjects were. This underscores the need to spend extra time and effort during the consent process to ensure that these individuals understand what they are getting into."

Moser states the coercion assessment ascertained that far more prisoners, compared to controls, wanted to be included for one or more reasons: to avoid being bored, meet someone new, help others, or, notably, to appear cooperative. Being in prison affects or influences voluntariness, but it may not lead to coercion, which is being forced to think or act in a way one otherwise might not.

An interesting finding was that 47% of the prisoners initially approached to be in the actual study said no, signifying that they felt free to refuse to participate altogether. Most who declined said it was because taking part would interfere with recreational time or opportunities to earn wages in prison-based employment.

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