Worldwide, over 10.2 million people are incarcerated. In Europe and the United States, prisoners experience higher rates of psychiatric illness than the general population. Clinical research may help improve the range and quality of psychiatric services in prison. Yet given the history of research abuses against prisoners, and ongoing concern that prisoners may be coerced or exploited by researchers, U.S. and European regulations greatly restrict prisoner research. Scant data exists on whether prisoners view modern clinical research as coercive or exploitative.

To improve our understanding of how prisoners view their participation in psychiatric-related clinical research, we sought to identify whether prisoners perceive their research participation as coercive or exploitative.

70 participants from six psychiatric-related clinical research studies in the U.S. were recruited and asked to rate their agreement with several statements regarding study participation.

No prisoner felt threatened by someone to enroll, and only 1 felt pressured by someone to enroll. One felt taken advantage of by the study, and 2 felt exploited by the study. All but 1 agreed that prisoners should have more access to research in general.

On balance, prisoners from this group do not perceive their study participation as coerced or exploitative and desire greater research opportunities. Given the urgent need for research studies that can address the complex psychiatric problems prisoners face, a better understanding of prisoner views toward research elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe is needed. Such work could support the easing of restrictions on prisoner research.