This research aims to explore trust, and its relation to trauma, in a population of incarcerated young women. Trust is crucial for rehabilitation, and can be seriously degraded by traumatic life experiences such as physical and sexual abuse. The vast majority of female prisoners have experienced prolonged and multiple abuses, ordinarily perpetrated by trusted others such as parents or other care-givers. This compromises not only interpersonal trust, but also the belief that social institutions such as schools, the police, social services and the criminal justice system can, and will, protect them from harm. This project aims to adopt a mixed methods approach to explore feelings of interpersonal and institutional trust in female prisoners who have experienced high levels of trauma. This study will be unique in exploring trust through a gender-sensitive sociological lens within a trauma informed framework, and aims to inform the policy and practices of female rehabilitation.
