Personal
Born in 1954, and educated (1966-1973) at King Williams College, Isle of Man, David then went on to Leeds University where he graduated in 1979 with a First Class Honours BSc degree in Psychology. He then spent four years at the Medical Research Council's National Institute For Medical Research, Division of Neurophysiology & Neuropharmacology in London, where he did postgraduate research on the neurochemical mechanisms of motivation, emotion and learning. Between 1984 and 1996 he worked as a psychologist for the English Prison Service. He was promoted to Senior Psychologist in 1986 and was merit promoted to Principal Psychologist in 1991 for his work on PROBE (PROfiling BEhaviour).
 
His service history was spent working on the implementation of policy recommendations originally made in the 1984 CRC Report. This ranged from developing Management Information Systems to facilitate the identification of difficult inmates for Special Units, to more general population and individual profiling, Sentence Planning and management. His research and development work brought Information Technology, Behaviour Decision Theory and Behaviour Analysis to bear on the recording of custodial behaviour in support of effective, and accountable inmate management and Sentence Planning.

From 1990 on, the emphasis of his work shifted from basic monitoring and PROfiling BEhaviour towards the development of actuarial systems which might be used to facilitate inmate behaviour change through PROgramming Behaviour (inmate programmes) This work focused on the measurement of attendance and attainment (performance) across all forms of inmate activity as a basis for negotiating individual sentence plans and contracts with inmates. Pilot studies of various aspects of the project were undertaken from 1992 onwards at various prisons. This approach was argued for in preference to "Cognitive Skills" programmes.

 
Academic and Training Responsibilities

Since the beginning of the PROBE project in 1986, and especially since 1988 when the Home Office and Birkbeck College London began running the MSc for Prison Psychologists, David contributed substantially towards the technical training of the vast majority of field and HQ psychologists. As well as tutoring on the Psychologists' MSc module Computing and Statistics from 1987, he provided extensive technical and professional support to staff undertaking research and analysis projects in the field. He also invested considerable efforts in redesigning the MSc Computing and Statistics course for 1993 and was sole tutor for 1993 and 1994. From the time of the creation of the Head of Inmate Activities post, he contributed regularly to the HIA training course at HQ. From 1987 to 1994 he developed and managed the PROBE system, providing training and support to all field and HQ Psychologists and Psychological Assistants. From 1988 onwards, he presented numerous papers at professional and internal meetings such as the Division of Criminological and Legal Psychology of the British Psychological Society (1990, 1992) and at Psychologists' Conferences. These presentations focused on the use of Information Systems in support of inmate behaviour management throughout sentence (Sentence Management).
 
HQ Policy Steering Group Contributions

Dispersal Prison Support Group (1985-1987)
Category A Sentence Planning Group (1989-92)
National F2054 Sentence Planning Group (1991-93)
National Sentence Management Steering Group (1992-93)