A systematic scoping review exploring how people with lived experience have been involved in prison and forensic mental health research.

Whilst this review identifies pockets of good practice, meaningful engagement in forensic mental health research seems to remain rare, at least as reported in papers published in academic journals. Further research is required into whether this reflects real limits on inclusion, as we suspect, or such full integration that such reporting is not regarded as necessary or desirable, which we doubt. We urge journal editors to routinely ask authors to include information about how people with lived experience have been involved in any published research and the nature and extent of the influence they had. This may help to develop the evidence base and guard against tokenistic involvement.