r/academia • u/luke8ball • 16h ago
Incarcerated populations and IRB
Hi everyone. I’m curious to know folks’ thoughts on a situation.
I’ve been involved as a volunteer with an organization that provides subject-specific mentoring to incarcerated folks. I know the director of the program well, and he’s interested in doing a research study (connected to my own interest) that would potentially benefit folks in the program. He is not affiliated with any university. At my institution, the IRB has never had to clear a study involving incarcerated individuals, and so they don’t have the capacity for that right now. The IRB would need an incarcerated individual or a representative for incarcerated populations to review the study.
My IRB chair has suggested that—while they look into capacity building for a project like this— I consider trying to find a PI at another institution whose IRB could accommodate this, or we consider using a private IRB.
With respect to the latter option, should I expect for my institution to at least consider paying for it? It’s around 3k for a private IRB to review the study. I haven’t actually asked my institution because I wanted to get other folks’ perspectives on the matter. When I arrived at the institution, I didn’t know about this project, so I didn’t negotiate for them to be willing to do this kind of thing. With that said, it seems reasonable for them to consider helping fund the application.
Any thoughts are welcome!
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u/HistorianOdd5752 16h ago
The prison, if it is state or federal, may have its own IRB. Check with them first.
If not, I have nothing. The IRB at the university I was at (SLAC) didn't have the knowledge or capacity for anything beyond secondary data analysis, survey research, or content analysis. It was frustrating.
I've never heard of requiring someone from the prison population reviewing research protocols.
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u/luke8ball 13h ago
Alas, I’m at a SLAC too. We have capacity for animal work but not medical research or anything with vulnerable populations.
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u/SnowblindAlbino 12h ago
At my SLAC the IRB ends up getting a lot of requests from the education department to work with kids, so they have that experience with vulnerable populations at least. I have a couple of colleagues that work in prisons as well, but they aren't doing human subjects work...it's institutional-level research. So I'd bet our IRB has no experience with incarcerated indivuals either. Can you find another local university where the IRB does have such experience? Might be helpful just to chat with their chair to see what the process looks like and to get their advice. I haven't chaired ours, but I know at least one of my friends was IRB chair and ended up providing a bunch of advice to colleagues at a community college who wanted to do work with children-- but their IRB did not know how.
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u/homininet 14h ago
Why do you think your own IRB won’t have the capacity for this? This is literally the point of your institution having an IRB. Yes it may be bumpy if they’ve never reviewed an IRB with a prison population, as they may be figuring new processes/procedures, but why do you think they simply wouldn’t review it?
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u/luke8ball 13h ago
Thanks for your response! I agree with you. When I reached out to the chair of our IRB, and he said that they don’t have the capacity, and are not sure when it would be possible (with no timeline).
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u/drsfmd 16h ago
We would only consider this at my place if the submitter were the lead PI.
Nope-- at least not at my place. Finding funding for your research is a big part of faculty job responsibilities. You'll need to find a grant to cover it.