Improving outcomes for stigmatised groups via social cohesion

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。强大的群体认同会让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而环游世界，只为破坏当地的环境，到帮派成员对对手实施暴行。这个问题能否被彻底扭转并提供一个解决方案：这种群体的激情能否被利用来造福社会？与此同时，我们如何培养强大到足以超越价值观和期望的积极的社会认同，帮助被污名化的人群，如出狱者、收容社区或有精神健康问题的人？拟议的研究围绕着社会治疗；群体和身份的力量将我们与积极的价值观和行为联系在一起。这项研究在真正的全国范围内具有开创性，涵盖了英国70多所监狱的男女囚犯，并利用了四大洲的合作。我将发展并应用“身份融合”的理论框架——一种强烈的、持久的社会联系形式——来研究这些难以接触到的人群。在所有目标中，这将导致干预措施以参与者为中心，根据个人需求量身定制，并对个人的社会联系和他们所依附的群体产生持久影响。该研究解决了一系列相关项目，最终通过调查我在第1-4年招募的监狱队列在2026年和2027年的再犯罪数据，为英国的监狱和监狱离开者提供社会联系（目标1）。除了致力于社会可接受的行为，出狱者还需要欢迎他们的社区；更新将帮助我通过一系列实验和调查，包括使用比较心理学，通过同步和最终的系统发育解释群体障碍，来理解群体凝聚力，从而引导接收社区对曾经被监禁的人和其他被污名化的群体的态度（目标2）。利用社会身份模型在司法领域的成功应用，该项目通过在促进持久归属感的自然环境中进行研究（这是目前医学模式所缺乏的领域），重新应用这种方法来提高迷幻剂辅助疗法的成功率（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，女王陛下的监狱和缓刑服务以及结对项目-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。这项研究得到了一位具有两年敏感数据研究经验的博士后研究员的进一步支持，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.