Prisons are developmental environments
A prison is more than a place of custody. Its routines, relationships, incentives, language, physical conditions and distributions of power continually shape what people notice, how situations are constructed and which responses appear possible. In that sense, the environment is a major developmental influence—for prisoners and for the staff who work alongside them. In practical terms, the environment is often the first leader.
The IAD Prisons and Adult Development Research Collaborative brings adult-development theory into dialogue with established prison, rehabilitation and organisational research. We are interested in testable questions about awareness, cognitive complexity, agency, decision-making, institutional culture and the difference between observable compliance and durable developmental progression.
The research team
The collaborative has a deliberately developmental structure: an experienced theory originator and research director works alongside an apprentice whose learning, observation and emerging inquiry are grounded in the prison domain.
Dr Darren Stevens
Darren’s doctoral research provided the foundations for Constructed Development Theory. His work examines awareness, Cognitive Intentions, Dynamic Intelligence and how adults construct choice and response in context. Within this collaborative, he contributes theory, developmental profiling, research design, methods support and the supervision of the Developmental Apprenticeship.
Isis Webb
Isis is developing her understanding and application of Constructed Development Theory in relation to prison practice. She contributes practice-informed observation, disciplined reflection and emerging inquiry. Her role is accurately described as an apprenticeship: it does not imply completed researcher training, independent academic status or credentials not yet attained.
Research questions
Our work is organised around practical questions that can be investigated, compared and challenged.
How does the institution shape what people can notice and choose?
Examine how rules, routines, relationships, incentives and physical conditions expand or constrain awareness, agency and complexity.
What distinguishes compliance from development?
Investigate whether changed behaviour reflects surveillance and reward, or more durable changes in awareness, meaning-making and choice.
What capacities does complex prison practice require?
Study staff judgement, emotional regulation, perspective-taking, accountability and decision-making under relational and operational pressure.
How can prisoners build agency and developmental complexity?
Explore IACR—Intention, Awareness, Choice and Response—as a framework for reflection, responsibility and future-directed action.
What can institutions learn from those living within them?
Test ways to treat prisoner experience as a source of structured organisational insight while safeguarding consent, power and confidentiality.
Can developmental change be observed over time?
Compare profiling and reprofiling with qualitative, behavioural and institutional evidence without reducing people to fixed types or scores.
Current research and developmental projects
We distinguish established foundations, active developmental practice and proposed research. Status labels describe maturity, not importance.
Constructed Development Theory and awareness in the moment
Dr Darren Stevens’ doctoral research established the conceptual and empirical foundations from which CDT developed, including questions about awareness, thinking construction, Dynamic Intelligence and context-dependent response. This work provides a theoretical starting point; it is not evidence that CDT has already been validated as a prison intervention.
Developmental Apprenticeship in a custodial context
Darren and Isis are developing a supervised pathway that combines CDT learning, reflective practice, observation and the gradual formation of researchable questions. The apprenticeship is itself a subject for disciplined documentation: what develops, under what conditions, and how can that change be evidenced without overstating causality?
FRAME and IACR for reflection, agency and response
FRAME is being developed as a prison-specific structure for guided developmental work. IACR—Intention, Awareness, Choice and Response—offers a complementary sequence for examining decision points. Both are developmental propositions that require clear specification, ethical testing and outcome evaluation.
Profiling, developmental activity and reprofiling
A proposed longitudinal design would establish a baseline, document the developmental environment and activities experienced, then reprofile at agreed intervals. Quantitative change would be interpreted alongside interviews, observations and relevant behavioural or institutional measures rather than as a stand-alone proof of development.
Prisoner-Led Insight as organisational learning
Prisoner-Led Insight explores whether people in prison can contribute structured, ethically gathered knowledge about institutional conditions, decision points and barriers to development. Any study must address voluntariness, representation, confidentiality, power and the risk of unintended consequences.
The Developmental Apprenticeship
The apprenticeship is both a learning pathway and a carefully bounded site of inquiry. Isis is not presented as a finished academic researcher. She is an emerging practitioner-researcher developing the language, methods, judgement and ethical discipline needed to move from experience to defensible inquiry.
Build conceptual and methodological literacy
Develop a working understanding of CDT, adult-development research, evidence, ethics and the limits of inference.
Notice the environment without claiming more than it shows
Use structured reflection to identify patterns, questions and alternative explanations within appropriate operational boundaries.
Test ideas through supervised developmental practice
Explore IACR, FRAME and related practices proportionately, with feedback and without treating developmental claims as established outcomes.
Turn practice questions into researchable propositions
Separate observation from interpretation, specify constructs, identify suitable methods and seek formal academic partnership where needed.
Work with the collaborative
We welcome serious conversations with prison services, individual establishments, universities, postgraduate researchers, practitioner-researchers and organisations concerned with rehabilitation, workforce development, justice and institutional learning.
Develop a researchable organisational question
Scope an independent, proportionate study around culture, decision-making, staff development, prisoner agency or rehabilitation.
Build academic and practice partnerships
Connect prison, criminology or adult-development expertise and formal governance with practice-informed questions and methodological challenge.
Use, compare or challenge CDT
Access CDT theory guidance, construct clarification and research-development conversations alongside formal university supervision.
Turn experience into disciplined inquiry
Clarify a question, distinguish experience from evidence and develop an ethically and methodologically defensible proposal.
Research standards and boundaries
Prison research involves people living and working within substantial institutional power. Collaboration therefore begins with clarity about authority, voluntariness, safeguarding, ethics, data, independence and the status of every claim.
Discuss a prisons research question
Tell us the question or problem you want to investigate, your role or institution, the current stage of the work and the contribution you would like from the collaborative. Please do not include operational, prisoner-related, case-related, personal, security-sensitive or otherwise protected information.