Dr Ben Jarman — Birkbeck, University of London

Overview

Biography

Ben joined ICPR in 2022 as a Senior Research Fellow on the World Prisons Research Programme, and has overall responsibility for conducting research on the 'Unlocking potential' programme of research. This international comparative research project examines prison labour and the provision of work and employment training to prisoners and prison-leavers in the UK, the USA and Brazil. The Project commenced in
2022 and will run until 2025.

Ben qualified as a teacher in 2007 and worked in secondary education for some years, but became interested in prisons following a career change, which saw him working in a series of voluntary sector organisations whose work related to criminal justice. He worked in policy research roles in Brussels (with QCEA) and in London (with Clinks), and then managed the prison volunteering programme of Fine Cell Work, an innovative social enterprise producing high-quality handmade textile products in prisons, by training and qualifying prisoners to do this work.

These roles developed and deepened Ben’s interest in imprisonment, and particularly in how people survive, adapt to and experience long sentences. He subsequently returned to postgraduate study, completing a Masters in Criminological Research at the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, and beginning a PhD in 2018. His PhD is funded jointly by the ESRC and Quakers in Britain's Adult Education grant programme.

Ben's research considers the ethical experiences of men serving mandatory life sentences following a conviction for murder: how they make sense of their situation, what moral messages are communicated by the UK's most extreme punishment, and how they attempt to 'be good people' given the immense constraints on their existence and the enormous harm done by their offence and conviction. The early stages of the PhD research were documented in the Changing Inside blog.

Ben paused work on his PhD in 2021 to spend six months on a knowledge exchange fellowship with the Prison Reform Trust's Building Future's programme; this work sought to operationalise some of the PhD's emerging findings by involving serving and ex-prisoners in policy consultations seeking to improve the existing policies covering the progression of people serving very long prison sentences. He is finishing his PhD alongside his work with ICPR.

Qualifications

MPhil in Criminological Research, University of Cambridge, 2017
PhD in Criminology, University of Cambridge, 2024
Certificate in Further Professional Development, University of Cambridge, 2009
Qualified Teacher Status, General Teaching Council for England, 2008
PGCE (Secondary History), UCL Institute of Education, 2007
BA(Hons) in History & Religious Studies, University of Cambridge, 2003

Honours and awards

ESRC Knowledge Exchange Fellowship, Economic & Social Research Council, July 2021
ESRC PhD studentship, Economic & Social Research Council, July 2018
Manuel López-Rey Graduate Prize, University of Cambridge, July 2017
Lightfoot Prize for Ecclesiastical History, University of Cambridge Faculty of History, July 2003

ORCID

0000-0003-3527-5437

Research

Research interests

Life imprisonment
Long-term imprisonment
Prison sociology
Prison education
Anthropology of ethics
Desistance research
Penal theory and moral communication
Sociology of punishment
Southern criminology
Cross-jurisdictional comparison

Research overview

Summary of topics of interest

work and employment
imprisonment
prison release
prison sociology
life and long-term imprisonment
comparative research
human rights governance in theory and practice

Prisoner employment and work

This international comparative three-year project, which commenced in early 2022, is researching the provision of employment and training in prisons in the UK, Brazil and the USA.

Reoffending rates among ex-prisoners worldwide have been high for decades, placing a heavy economic burden on societies. One of the main drivers of reoffending is unemployment, but ex-prisoners face many challenges finding a job on release. People with prior histories of disadvantage, social and educational exclusion and unemployment are over-represented in prison populations. Our recent research has revealed the value that prisoners in many countries place on work and training in custody. Yet prisons rarely receive the necessary resources to prioritise training and employment. Work in prisons is usually in short supply and is either low-paid or unpaid.

This project will produce an evidence base to inform and promote better policy and practice and improved collaboration between public, private and voluntary sectors in the provision of effective, sustainable and ethical work in prisons. This will contribute to a reduction in reoffending, by virtue of greater numbers of prisoners gaining skills and working in paid jobs during their time in custody; and more ex-prisoners receiving support to gain skills and employment on release.

Life and long-term imprisonment

Ben's PhD research investigated the experiences of men serving life sentences for murder in two English prisons.

In the UK, one of the world's leading users of life sentences, the most severe criminal sanction available to sentencers has changed very significantly in recent years. The life sentence involves a minimum term of imprisonment followed by a lifelong continuation during which prison release is conditional on risk assessment, and a return to prison always remains possible.

Such conditions---involving lifelong punishment and periods of imprisonment frequently measured in decades---call into question traditional notions of 'rehabilitation', since the harms done by an offence of murder, and by such a severe sentence, can hardly be put right. Those serving the sentence must instead try to find new ways to make sense of and find hope in their situations, given the very significant constraints they will live under until their deaths. All the while, they are compelled to live in conditions of profound uncertainty, since their future freedom will always be conditional, and their progress towards release and towards a viable life post-custody will therefore also depend on their ability to demonstrate that they have 'changed' or 'reformed' themselves, and that their risk of harming others has declined.

Using a theoretical frame drawn from the anthropology of ethics, Ben's research is most fundamentally interested in how people make sense of their lives following a conviction for murder and the gradual process of adapting to a lifelong punishment. It asks a series of questions relating to ethical becoming: what does being convicted of murder and given a life-wrecking prison sentence communicate to them, morally, about their status, and how do they make sense of this message in thinking about how to move forwards with their lives, during and after imprisonment?

Ben is in the process of writing up his PhD alongside his work at Birkbeck, and will develop this project in future with further research on life and long-term imprisonment. He has a particular interest in parole and the sentence progression of people serving very long sentences, and completed a project in 2021 with the Prison Reform Trust on this topic.

Research Centres and Institutes

Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research (ICPR)
PhD Candidate, Prisons Research Centre, University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology

Supervision and teaching

Teaching

Teaching modules

Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice (LADD059S7)

Publications

Article

Jarman, Ben and Heard, Catherine (2024) Prison work in law and reality: comparative perspectives from Brazil, the UK, and the US. European Labour Law Journal ISSN 2399-5556.
Jarman, Ben (2022) Life imprisonment in mature adulthood: adaptation, risk, and reform later in the life course. Prison Service Journal (261), pp. 33-38. ISSN 0300-3558.
Ievins, A. and Jarman, Ben and Reimer, T.T. (2021) False accounting: why we shouldn't ask people who commit crimes to pay their debts to society. Working Notes (88),
Jarman, Ben (2020) Only one way to swim? The offence and the life course in accounts of adaptation to life imprisonment. The British Journal of Criminology 60 (6), pp. 1460-1479. ISSN 0007-0955.
Jarman, Ben and Lanskey, C. (2019) `A Poor Prospect Indeed': the state's disavowal of child abuse victims in youth custody, 1960– 1990. Societies 9 (2), pp. 27. ISSN 2075-4698.
Jarman, Ben (2009) When were Jews in Medieval England most in danger? Exploring change and continuity with Year 7. Teaching History (136), pp. 4-12. ISSN 2398-1571.

Conference Item

Jarman, Ben Can people 'desist' in prison? Reflections on the implications of Desistance Theory for long-term imprisonment. University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology Seminar, Cambridge, UK
Jarman, Ben Open data and sensitive interviews: reflecting on ethics, consent, and reproducibility. University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology Seminar, Cambridge, UK
Jarman, Ben "Part of the Furniture Now, Innit?" Risk governance and moral thwarting among life-sentenced men in English prisons. Moral and Ethical Worlds of Confinement, Cambridge, UK
Jarman, Ben Penal theory, personal ethics and the life sentence in empirical perspective. University of Hull Rising Star seminar series, Online
Jarman, Ben Tracing the history of child abuse in youth custody: does the archive offer current practitioners anything beyond useless knowledge after the fact?. Confronting the Violence of the Archive, Oxford, UK
Jarman, Ben Turning points or dead ends? Identity, desistance and the experience of life imprisonment. Violence Prevention at the Intersections of Identity and Experience, Worcester, UK

Monograph

Jarman, Ben and Fair, Helen (2024) Working prisoners in the USA: laws, policies, and practical realities. pp. 23. London, UK: Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research.
Jarman, Ben and Fair, Helen (2024) Working prisoners in the UK: laws, policies, and practical realities. pp. 23. London, UK: Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research.
Jarman, Ben and Heard, Catherine (2023) Labouring behind bars: assessing international law on working prisoners. pp. 23. London, UK: Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research.
Jarman, Ben and Vince, C. (2022) Making progress? What progression means for people serving the longest sentences. pp. 76. London, UK: Prison Reform Trust.
Liebling, A. and Laws, B. and Crewe, B. and Auty, K. and Schmidt, B. and Kant, D. and Jarman, Ben and Gardom, J. and Williams, R. and Cope, A. and Morey, M. (2019) HMP Whitemoor - MQPL+ Report. pp. 70. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology.
Jarman, Ben and Delap, L. and Jackson, L. and Lanskey, C. and Marshall, H. and Gelsthorpe, L. (2018) Safeguarding children in the secure estate, 1960-2016. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology.
Jarman, Ben (2012) Evaluating volunteer impact: tools to help you assess the impact made by volunteers in the Criminal Justice System. pp. 55. London, UK: Clinks.
Casey, J. and Jarman, Ben (2011) The social reintegration of ex-prisoners in Council of Europe member states. pp. 135. Brussels, Belgium: Quaker Council for European Affairs.

Other

Jarman, Ben (2021) Can confidential research be reproducible: consent, ethics, prison interviews and the open research agenda. Cambridge: University of Cambridge repository.
Jarman, Ben (2020) Three stories. Changing Inside changinginside.co.uk.
Jarman, Ben (2019) Interviews as power games. Changing Inside Changing Inside blog: changinginside.co.uk.
Jarman, Ben (2019) Interviews as transactions. Changing Inside Changing Inside blog: changinginside.co.uk.
Jarman, Ben (2019) The 'rules of the game' in prison research. Changing Inside Changing Inside blog: changinginside.co.uk.
Jarman, Ben (2019) Comparing sentences, comparing offences (part 1). Changing Inside Changing Inside blog: changinginside.co.uk.
Jarman, Ben (2019) Comparing sentences, comparing offences (part 2). Changing Inside changinginside.co.uk.
Jarman, Ben (2019) Not just a piece of cake. Changing Inside Changing Inside Blog: changinginside.co.uk.
Jarman, Ben (2018) Scandal and reform, 1960-2016: can better policies guarantee child welfare in secure custody?. History & Policy London, UK: History & Policy.

External Repositories

Apollo (University of Cambridge)

Business and community

Services

Other
04-MAY-21 to 22-OCT-21

Knowledge exchange partnership with the Prison Reform Trust. I worked with PRT’s programme staff on Building Futures, a Lottery-funded programme of work seeking to improve the prison experiences of and the post-custodial outcomes for people serving long prison sentences. We developed a policy consultation building on my emerging PhD findings, and consulted serving and ex-prisoners about the policies governing their progression. We then developed a report on the consultation and developed policy recommendations, and convened roundtable events bringing together senior civil servants, prison leaders, and current and former long-term prisoners, to promote the findings and recommendations of the consultation.
Other
01-MAY-21 to 22-OCT-21

Advisor to the Independent Commission into the Experiences of Victims and Long-term Prisoners. I provided advice, draft text, and editing for sections of the Commission's report, particularly around penal and sentencing theory, and around the existing research literature on the effects of long-term imprisonment.