Improving outcomes for stigmatised groups via social cohesion

累犯是英国目前面临的最大社会经济负担之一。据估计，每年重新进入监狱的总成本为181亿英镑，这给国民经济带来了巨大的负担。这加剧了再犯罪的相关社会成本，包括越轨、不稳定的社区和流离失所。罪犯在12个月内再次犯罪的可能性为48%，这加剧了目前监狱人满为患的危机，这与严重的精神健康问题和传染病的传播有关。目前，英国的再犯罪率很稳定，这为研究如何减少再犯罪率以及它们给经济和更广泛的公民社会带来的负担提供了理想的时机。强大的群体认同感会让人们为他们的群体做出非凡的行为--从铁杆球迷环游世界看一场比赛，结果却是破坏当地，到帮派成员对他们的对手犯下暴行。这个问题能否彻底改变，并提供一个解决方案：能否利用这一群体的热情造福社会？与此同时，我们如何培养积极的社会认同，这种认同足够强大，足以超越价值观和期望，帮助被污名化的人群，如离狱人员、收容社区或有心理健康问题的人？这项拟议的研究围绕着社会疗法；群体和身份认同将我们与积极的价值观和行为联系在一起的力量。这项研究在真正的全国范围内具有开创性，涵盖了70多个英国监狱的男性和女性，并利用四大洲的合作。我将发展和应用‘身份融合’的理论框架--一种强烈、持久的社会纽带形式--适用于这些难以接触到的人群。在目标方面，这将导致以参与者为中心的干预措施，根据个人需求量身定做，并对个人的社会连通性和他们所联系的群体产生持久影响。这项研究解决了一系列相互关联的项目，通过调查2026年和2027年从我的监狱队列中招募的1-4年的再犯罪数据(目标1)，最终支持英国监狱中的人和离狱者的社会关系。除了致力于社会可接受的行为外，离开监狱的人还需要欢迎社区；更新将支持我通过一系列实验和调查来了解接收社区对以前被监禁的人和其他受污名的群体的态度，包括使用比较心理学通过同步和最终的、对群体障碍的系统学解释来理解群体凝聚力(目标2)。利用社会认同模式在司法中的成功应用，该项目通过在自然化的环境中进行研究，促进持久的归属感，重新应用这种方法来提高迷幻辅助治疗的成功，这是目前医学模式所缺乏的一个领域(目标3)。该研究项目跨越学科和方法，并获得了主要非学术合作伙伴的支持，以解决这些问题，包括司法部、女王陛下监狱和缓刑服务局以及双胞胎项目-这是一个全国性的干预项目，将主要足球俱乐部与监狱配对，并为囚犯提供足球行业培训和可持续的社会身份。该项目主要受人类学、心理学和犯罪学的启发，将使用跨文化实践创建新的工具，这些工具可以在全国范围内应用，以影响积极、可行的社会变革。这项研究还得到了一名博士后研究员的进一步支持，他拥有两年处理敏感数据的经验，以及一个由精心挑选的合作者和导师组成的核心团队。

Recidivism is one of the greatest socio-economic burdens the UK currently faces. At an estimated total cost of £18.1 billion a year, prison re-entry places a substantial burden on the national economy. This exacerbates reoffending's associated societal costs, including deviance, unstable communities and displacement. There is a 48% chance that an offender will go on to re-offend within a 12-month period, worsening the current prison overcrowding crisis, which is associated with severe mental health issues and a spread in infectious diseases. Re-offending rates are currently stable in the UK, providing an ideal time to conduct research into reducing them and the burden they place on the economy and wider civil society.Powerful group identities lead people to enact extraordinary behaviours for their groups - from hardcore football fans travelling the globe for a game only to vandalise the local area, to gang members committing atrocities against their rivals. Can this problem be turned on its head and provide a solution: can this group passion be harnessed for the social good? At the same time, how can we foster positive social identities that are powerful enough to transcend values and expectations, helping stigmatised populations, such as prison leavers, receiving communities, or people with mental health issues? The proposed research hinges around the social cure; the power of groups and identities to connect us to positive values and behaviours. The research is ground-breaking in its truly national scale, encompassing men and women in over 70 British prisons, and leveraging collaborations across four continents. I will develop and apply the theoretical framework of 'identity fusion' - an intense, lasting form of social bonding - to these hard-to-reach populations. Across objectives, this will lead to interventions that are participant-focused, tailored to individual needs, and have lasting impact on individuals' social connectivity and the groups they are bonded to. The research tackles a portfolio of linked projects, ultimately championing social connections for people in prison and prison-leavers in the UK by investigating at reoffending data in 2026 and 2027 from my prison cohorts recruited in years 1-4 (Objective 1). As well as committing to societally acceptable behaviour, prison leavers also need welcoming communities; the renewal will support me to navigate receiving communities' attitudes to formerly incarcerated people and other stigmatised groups via a suite of experiments and surveys, including the use of comparative psychology to understand group cohesion via synchrony and ultimate, phylogenetic explanations of group barriers (Objective 2). Capitalising on the success of applying the social identity model in justice, this project re-applies the approach to improve the success of psychedelic-assisted therapies by conducting research in naturalised settings that promote lasting feelings of belonging, an area currently lacking in medical models (Objective 3). The research project crosses disciplines and methodologies, and has secured support from major non-academic partners to address these questions, including the Ministry of Justice, Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service and the Twinning Project - a nationwide intervention that pairs major football clubs with prisons and gives football-industry training and sustainable social identities to prisoners. Primarily informed by anthropology, psychology and criminology, the project will create novel tools using cross-cultural practices, which can be applied nationwide to affect positive, viable societal change. This research is further supported by a postdoctoral researcher with two years' experience with the sensitive data we work with, and a core team of carefully selected collaborators and mentors.