Righting recidivism: unlocking the cognitive underpinnings of successful interventions to reduce reoffending

累犯是英国目前面临的最大的社会经济负担之一。据估计，每年重新入狱的总费用为181亿英镑，给国民经济带来了沉重的负担。这加剧了再犯的相关社会成本，包括行为失常、社区不稳定和流离失所。罪犯在12个月内再次犯罪的几率为48%，这加剧了目前监狱过度拥挤的危机，这与严重的精神健康问题和传染病的传播有关。目前，英国的再犯罪率保持稳定，这为研究如何减少再犯罪率及其对经济和更广泛的公民社会造成的负担提供了理想的时间。我们已经知道，强大的群体认同会引导人们为自己的群体做出非同寻常的行为——从铁杆球迷为了一场比赛环游世界，到帮派成员对对手实施暴行。这个问题是否可以反过来提供一个解决方案？群体的激情能被用来造福社会吗？更具体地说，我们如何培养积极的社会身份，这种身份足够强大，可以重写罪犯的自我叙述？我将把“身份融合”——一种强烈的、持久的社会联系形式——的理论框架应用于监狱人口。本研究首次整合了有关体育身份融合（作为改革的催化剂）、共享经验、女性在冒犯社区中的角色以及男性的角色以及干预实施方法的文献。拟议的为期七年的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，HMPPS和结对项目-一项全国性的干预，将主要足球俱乐部与监狱配对，并为囚犯提供足球工业培训和可持续的社会身份。该项目主要以人类学、心理学和犯罪学为基础，将利用跨文化实践创造新的工具，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。这项研究得到了两名博士后研究人员、一个由精心挑选的导师组成的核心团队以及另外五名英国和国际合作者的进一步支持。至关重要的是，我把重点放在这个框架内的女性身上——她们是司法系统和接收前罪犯的社区中的关键角色——尽管她们在身份融合和再犯罪的文献中都被忽视了。尽管女性罪犯只占罪犯总数的5%，但她们在刑事司法系统中所占的成本却高得不成比例：据估计，仅维持女性治安一年就要花费10亿英镑。尽管如此，她们也是一个特别脆弱的群体：60%的人会经历家庭暴力，大约25%的人有需要抚养的孩子，其中许多人会自残（是男性的五倍）。作为公认的足球迷之间的社会联系和暴力问题专家，我将利用我的理论和应用知识来分析现有的干预措施，为未来的干预设计一个工具包，并在特别脆弱和关键的人群（如女性和青少年罪犯）中实施研究实践。这个项目将使我成为我所在领域的世界领导者，并有助于组建一支跨学科的研究团队，共同致力于解决再犯罪问题。

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.We already know that powerful group identities lead people to enact extraordinary behaviours for their groups - from hardcore football fans travelling the globe for a game to gang members committing atrocities against their rivals. Can this problem be turned on its head to provide a solution? Can group passion be harnessed for the social good? More specifically, how can we foster positive social identities that are powerful enough to re-write offenders' self-narratives? I will apply the theoretical framework of 'identity fusion' - an intense, lasting form of social bonding - to prison populations. For the first time, this research integrates literatures on fusion to sports identities (as a catalyst for reform), shared experiences, women's roles in offending communities as well as men's, and approaches to intervention implementation.The proposed seven-year research project crosses disciplines and methodologies, and has secured support from major non-academic partners to address these questions, including the MoJ, HMPPS 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 two postdoctoral researchers, a core team of carefully selected mentors, and five additional UK and international collaborators.Crucially, I focus on women within this framework - as pivotal actors within both the justice system and the communities that receive ex-offenders - though they are much neglected in both the literatures on identity fusion and re-offending. Despite representing just 5% of offenders, women account for a disproportionately high cost to the criminal justice system: policing females alone is estimated at £1bn a year. Nonetheless, they are also a particularly vulnerable population: 60% will have experienced domestic violence, around 25% have dependent children, and many of them self-harm (five times as many as men).As a recognised expert on social bonding and violence among football fans, I will draw upon my theoretical and applied knowledge to analyse existing interventions, design a toolkit for future interventions, and implement the researched practices in particularly vulnerable and critical populations (e.g. female and young offenders). This project will afford me recognition as a world leader in my field and help to grow a team of inter-disciplinary researchers, united by a passion to tackle reoffending.