The nature and impact of trauma in young adult male prisoners: screening for trauma and exploring the experience both past and present

This study explores the impact of trauma as experienced by 18-25-year-old men in prison, serving long sentences of more than 10 years, and whether and how the experience of their offence and sentence length was part of that. Coping responses were explored too. An IPA methodology was used to analyse the results and produce themes. These methods suited the exploration of how young men experience and process trauma and for offering an encounter where they could discuss their experiences in their own terms. The full thesis describes the methodological process in full. Participants discussed their experiences across three overarching themes, 1. 'Conceptual Confusion', 2. The 'Impact Now of Trauma' and 3. 'Settling'. The study demonstrated that it is possible to discuss the concept of difficult life events with young adult male prisoners, although this was more difficult for some participants than others. The full thesis describes the various pertinent characteristics of the participants. This dataset contains the transcripts from the 25 in-person interviews with the nine young adult males interviewed for this study between April 2020 and May 2021. Participants were asked a series of open ended questions during a 60 minute interview. The interviews were separate consent, research and participant verification interviews. The dataset comprises of the data analysis arising from those interviews and a code chart for each participant with the emergent themes for each case. It also includes a blank consent form, participant information sheet and interview guide; and an anonymised list of interviewees. All data is fully anonymised for name, nicknames, place, offence and sentence details. The study provides a greater understanding of the experience of past and present trauma for young men in prison, offering a phenomenological lens on those who have been harmed, have harmed others and are harmed now by being in prison. The study supports the existing literature around the experience of trauma in young men, but added further insight into the challenge to assessment and intervention work with this cohort. The study offers practitioners and policymakers insights into the need to avoid assumptions of homogeneity due to age, and ideas for what might be helpful to these men whilst in prison