Exploring factors associated with dual harm among young adult men in prison

Thurston, L ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6864-895X, Slade, K ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7442-4805, Baguley, T ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0477-2492 and Blagden, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4037-0984, 2025. Exploring factors associated with dual harm among young adult men in prison. Psychology, Crime and Law. ISSN 1068-316X

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Abstract

Dual harm (coexisting self-harm and violence) is more frequently exhibited by people in prison than community populations. No research has solely investigated dual harm by young adults in prison. Using national, routinely collected data from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (n = 20,403), this study explored whether young men (aged 18–21) who dual harmed in prison could be distinguished from young men who either sole harmed or did not engage in either harmful behaviour, based on demographic, developmental, criminological and clinical factors. Twelve per cent of the sample dual harmed in prison. Exploratory analyses revealed that for young men who dual harmed, poor education skills related more strongly to early police contact, and drug misuse was more strongly related to having a history of harm to self, compared to those who did not dual harm. Confirmatory analyses found that young men who dual harmed were younger when first in contact with the police and admitted to prison, spent longer in custody aged 18–21, and had fewer qualifications than the comparison groups. This study reports that young men who dual harm in prison have unique profiles that can be identified using prison data, and highlights the importance of upstream, preventative interventions.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Psychology, Crime and Law
Creators:	Thurston, L., Slade, K., Baguley, T. and Blagden, N.
Publisher:	Routledge
Date:	11 September 2025
ISSN:	1068-316X
Identifiers:	Number Type 2491481 Other 10.1080/1068316X.2025.2555590 DOI
Rights:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Psychology, Crime and Law on 11 September 2025, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2025.2555590
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	03 Sep 2025 11:10
Last Modified:	16 Sep 2025 08:55
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54290

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