work, and paperwork for staff.
•After the conclusion of the project, provide agencies with a report summarizing the findings from your research, and take into account their comments before sharing the results or report with a wider audience. This agreement may also be included in a memorandum of understanding that is agreed upon during the initial stages of the research (e.g., the approval process). It is often possible to reword statements to convey the same message but in a way that is less offensive to people working in the system. For example, one might say, “guidelines for how to manage clients were unclear” rather than “their leader was a terrible manager who gave no guidance to her staff.” Instead of altering what is said or infringing upon researcher’s freedom of speech, this advice is about considering how the message is conveyed to avoid unnecessarily damaging research relationships.
•In publications, acknowledge and thank the agencies and their staff for their participation (unless they prefer not to be identified).
•Send physical or electronic copies of final publications to relevant people in the agency as well as any other relevant leaders and line staff, especially when multiple agencies are involved in the research project or in service delivery. It may be most efficient to have a designated person in the administration who you keep updated on the status of the study and as someone who can help with issues as they arise.
HOW TO ASK FOR PERMISSION TO ACCESS CORRECTIONAL POPULATIONS
Sometimes research requests must be made electronically through an agency’s website and other times it will be necessary to call agencies to request access. We highly recommend calling on the phone instead of, or in addition to, e-mailing because e-mails can easily be ignored or unreturned for prolonged periods of time. One useful approach is to send an e-mail first indicating that the researcher will follow up with a phone call in a few days, and then make sure to call within the noted time period. Depending upon the number of facilities from which a researcher will be requesting access, it may be necessary to repeat one’s request to conduct research multiple times. For example, given the large number of people with whom we spoke within each jail in our quest to gain access to each location, we found it helpful to have a script prepared (either memorized or read) to briefly introduce ourselves and the purpose of our request. See box 1 for the general verbiage we used when calling jails to request access to conduct research.
Having a typed template or bullet points of what to say helps, because it ensures the caller will not forget anything pertinent. In addition, if there are multiple people making calls, it ensures that they are at least generally saying the same things. Once connected to the correct person, it is useful to have a longer description of the study (e.g., based on points identified in the informed consent) to help initiate a conversation that can lead to a face-to-face meeting. Sometimes the appropriate contact person may ask researchers to e-mail information first for their perusal before the meeting. In this case, we recommend that researchers summarize their project in a single page for this initial contact because practitioners are often too busy to read the entire proposal. When meeting with gatekeepers, it is important to explain your background, your partnerships with other practitioners, and the products from these partnerships (e.g., bring one-page summaries and copies of technical reports you have prepared). Also in this meeting with gatekeepers, explain your project goals and ask about any goals of the practitioners (Garcia 2016).
TYPICAL STEPS NEEDED TO REQUEST PERMISSION TO ACCESS CORRECTIONAL POPULATIONS
The correctional agency’s website or the appropriate person authorized to approve the research should provide instruction on next steps. Many correctional agencies require that researchers submit a number of documents when requesting access, such as:
•A written description of the project on university letterhead and/or a detailed proposal regarding specific information about the research purpose, goals, design, etc.
•Data collection instruments and informed consent forms
•University IRB approval, if this has already been obtained
When one of us was a doctoral student, a jail requested a recommendation letter from our faculty advisor, so there was evidence that someone at the university was supervising the project. Other agencies, like the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, may require a copy of the researcher’s driver’s license and curriculum vitae (see https://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/faq/faq_external_research.html).
Many correctional agencies require that researchers and research assistants who will enter the facility be given and pass a criminal background check. In our experiences, the background check approval was usually obtained within two to three weeks, although one facility (a jail) took more than three months to get the results and allow us to begin the study. That is, researchers will need to plan for background check waiting periods in their projected study timelines (e.g., for dissertation or grant proposals) and discuss these requirements with agencies of interest up front. Although most facilities we worked with granted approval for the research without requiring a meeting with administrators, we believe it can be very helpful to schedule a meeting prior to data collection (or at least a conference call) to discuss logistics (see chapter 5 for a comprehensive list of questions to discuss with correctional staff prior to data collection). In addition to background checks, some facilities may also require health-related tests, such as tuberculosis testing (e.g., required by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) or flu shots (e.g., required in our current work with the Department of State Hospitals).
WHEN TO OBTAIN ACCESS TO CORRECTIONAL POPULATIONS IN CONJUNCTION WITH OTHER RESEARCH TASKS
Gaining access to correctional populations can take a lot of time, especially if the research participants are minors and under correctional control. If relationships with correctional agencies are not already established prior to the study of interest, we recommend contacting the agencies at the time of idea and instrument creation to discuss the possibility of working with them, as well as discuss any topics the gatekeepers might like you to research for them. In our experience, writing good instruments is not only time consuming but very critical to obtaining methodologically sound results. Researchers may not want to spend time writing and finalizing instruments if the relevant agencies are not interested in participating and the instruments, therefore, may go unused. Yet, agencies are often more invested and willing to help if researchers are also measuring information they need or want.
Original data collection often requires the balancing of a variety of tasks, and the complexity increases when multiple agencies will be accessed. We recommend creating the instrumentation (e.g., survey or interview questions) and informed consent during the same time period that one is calling the facilities to obtain permission to access (steps 1 and 2 in figure 1). If the instrument is nearly complete when seeking agency or facility approval, then items that the practitioners request (if any) can easily be added before applying for university IRB approval. In many of our research projects, we added data collection items to our instruments that were of particular interest to our practitioner partners, even if the information was not specifically relevant to the main aim of the study. In some cases, we have adapted forms to collect additional data if new programming components were implemented after the study had commenced. For example, in our South Oxnard Challenge Project (SOCP), after the program had been running for a while, one staff member took a particular interest in developing job skills in the program’s juvenile clients. Consequently, we updated the contact form with a code for job skills. Although we did not have data on job skills training for all youth in the program, we presumably had it for those who received it once it was implemented. Yet, agency interest will vary. For example, in our Florida jail study, we invited administrators to include survey items, but none took us up on this offer. Of course, even if administrators’ questions are added to surveys or interviews,
