The Prison Health Research Council is made up of 10 members with lived experience of incarceration. We have been meeting since January 2024 and working to shape health research on people who experience incarceration in Canada.
We were recently featured by DFM for our new CIHR Catalyst grant that will extend our work. Under this funding, we are also carrying out a collaborative research project on a topic we iteratively chose as a team: post-incarceration syndrome. We are beginning a scoping review to understand the conceptualization, definition, and state of knowledge about the syndrome in the literature.
In May, over half of the Council as well as the project team were able to attend the National Conference on Critical Perspectives in Criminology and Social Justice. We presented a panel on the impacts to date by topic, and a workshop on early planning to support our post-incarceration syndrome. Both had active audiences and were well received, further spreading the reach of the Council.
Our work continues with consulting on research projects, driving the state of research on people who experience incarceration, and continuous advocacy for those still inside.
Project Leads: Claire Bodkin, Fiona Kouyoumdjian Contact: Lindsay Jennings (jennil2@mcmaster.ca), Jessica Gaber (jgaber@mcmaster.ca)
Research Project Update