Arrangements therefore had to be made for these participants to be permitted to go to the Programmes Department. On a number o f occasions, participants simply declined to go to the Programmes Department without giving any explanation. At HMP
Frankland, data collection was limited to the length o f my stay at the DSPD unit. Whilst at HMP Frankland, I did not have keys and had to be escorted on the unit, which was time consuming for the member o f staff escorting me. I visited HMP Frankland on two occasions. At the DSPD unit, offenders have their own
individualised programme and attend group work and individual sessions. They also take part in other activities such as horticulture. It was therefore difficult to identify time when participants were not involved in other activities for them to take part in this research. Collecting data at HMP Leyhill presented a different range o f
challenges. Many offenders at HMP Leyhill are involved in completing a range o f unsupervised activities in the community, in fact, many work full time. Offenders at HMP Leyhill also take periods of resettlement leave at hostels in the community for a maximum o f 5 days. Although a number o f participants initially agreed to take part in my research, it was difficult to identify a date when they were in the prison when they would actually be able to complete the research. I joined the psychology department at HMP Leyhill in October 2007, so it became easier to arrange appointments for participants to take part in my research. Due to a potential conflict o f interests, I did not ask any offenders who were on my caseload at HMP Leyhill to take part in the research.
It is clear that only a small proportion o f those approached (estimated to be around 20-25%) actually completed the research. Differences may therefore exist between the participants who agreed to take part in the research and those who declined, or who
failed to attend appointments. On a number o f occasions there may have been a range o f genuine reasons why participants failed to attend appointments to complete this research. However, it is also possible that a number o f participants agreed to take part during the initial meeting because they may have felt pressurised to do so and then they failed to attend. It would have been interesting to compare those participants who took part in the research and those who did not. It is clearly possible that this self- selecting group who chose to take part in the research may differ in some ways from those that did not, and I would speculate that such a lack o f willingness to volunteer might well be related to some aspects o f psychopathy. However, the nature of the ethics o f this research meant that I did not have permission to access such information for those that did not volunteer (and, indeed, I was ignorant o f which inmates had refused and which had not been approached) and hence I am unable to explore this issue any further.
4. ETHICS
HMP Long Lartin and HMP Frankland are prisons that are both part o f the Directorate o f High Security Prisons (DHSP). HMP Leyhill is part o f the South West region. Therefore it was necessary to obtain ethical approval from both DHSP and South West Region. Ethical approval for the study was provided by the Area Psychologists from both the DHSP and South West Region in line with Prison Service Order 7035, Research Applications and Ethics Panel. See Appendix 1 for a copy o f my application for ethical approval which was sent to the Area Psychologist at DHSP and Heads o f Psychology at HMP Frankland and HMP Leyhill, who acted on behalf of their governors.
It is important to note that the Area Psychologist from DHSP gave approval for the research to be conducted at HMP Long Lartin and HMP Frankland (DSPD unit). However, after ethical approval was given I approached the security department at HMP Long Lartin to seek permission to use equipment that would be needed to measure either galvanic skin response (GSR) or the blink startle response. Permission was not given for a number of reasons. Managers in the security department were concerned about use o f cables and the close proximity to offenders when securing electrodes. Secondly liquids, creams and gels are not permitted into high security prisons unless their use is related to a medical condition. It is necessary to apply gel when applying electrodes in order to improve conductance. As it was not possible to measure GSR or blink startle, the EPT was developed which could be administered by using a laptop computer. Permission was given by the security department to use a laptop computer (without a wireless connection) in the Programmes Department, which is located a distance from residential units. The Area Psychologist from DHSP gave permission for me to use the EPT rather than measure GSR or the blink startle response. I informed all Heads of Psychology about the change to my research.
5. MEASURES
Participants had already completed both the PCL-R (Hare, 2003) and WASI
(Wechsler, 1999) assessments for clinical purposes prior to taking part in this study. All procedures were explained to the participants via an information sheet and the participants then gave written informed consent to participate (see Appendix 1 for a copy o f the consent form and details o f instructions provided to participants).
Participants then completed the MSCEIT (Mayer, Caruso & Salovey, 2002), the PPI- R (Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005), TMMS (Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey & Palfai (1995), the EPT and the DEFT in this set order. Details o f each o f the measures and tasks will be provided in subsequent chapters.
6. PROCEDURE
Each participant was tested alone in a quiet, well lit room with the experimenter. Participants were seated at a table. The computer based tasks were presented on a Toshiba Satellite Pro L10 laptop. The laptop was positioned on the table
approximately 60-80cms away from the participant. Participants did move during the task so the distance was not exact.
Participants completed the five tasks in the same order; MSCEIT, PPI-R, TMMS, EPT and DEFT. For the MSCEIT, TMMS and PPI-R, standardised instructions were read out to each participant prior to completing each task. Instructions for the
completion o f the computer based tasks were presented on the computer screen. These instructions will be given in the relevant empirical chapter.