Prison Officers at their Best Professor Alison Liebling

Prison Officers at their Best Professor Alison Liebling Institute of Criminology, Cambridge Prison Officer Summer Symposium, Oxford August 14 -15 2017

The story begins. . . • Oiling the wheels (of a research project) • Tea • ‘Jailcraft’ • The good use of authority • Its ‘moral meaning’ • Politics, Criminology, Cambridge (and Oxford!): prison officers as ‘political philosophers in action’?

Prison officers matter far more than they realise • They contribute most (80%) to quality of life in prison • They are not ‘turnkeys’ but ‘gatekeepers’ and ‘peacekeepers’: figures with moral and instrumental power.

Books about prison officers at their best. . .

Their most important skills: • ‘Talk’ • ‘Presence’ (of a certain kind. . . ) Prison officers do things differently: fferently • Role model officers. . . have clear boundaries, moral strength • Neither lax nor over rule-bound.

Outstanding common sense?

Peace-building Prison staff are accomplishers rather than keepers of the peace – or order – in prison. • See Liebling, A; Elliot, C. ; and Price, D. (1999) ‘Appreciative Inquiry and Relationships in Prison’, Punishment and Society: The International Journal of Penology 1(1) pp 71 -98. • Liebling, A. (2000) ‘Prison Officers, Policing and the Use of Discretion’, Theoretical Criminology, 4(3): 333 -357.

Good methods for studying prison officers • Appreciative Inquiry: ‘tell me about your best day ever as a prison officer’. . . • Shadowing: reveals ‘the gap’ between ‘the rules’ and ‘action’. • Rules as resources; based on ideas about order.

Control Review Committee (1984) • “At the end of the day, nothing else that we can say will be as important as the general proposition that relations between staff and prisoners are at the heart of the whole prison system and that control and security flow from getting that relationship right. ” (Home Office, 1984: para. 16). • Reformulated: “At the end of the day, nothing else that we can say will be as important as the general proposition that ‘staff professionalism’ is at the heart of the whole prison system and that control and security flow from getting these right. (Liebling 2011: 496)

‘Moral dualism’ • Security values • Harmony values • (Conservative) • (Liberal/social democratic) • Self-protection • Peaceful coexistence • Rule of law • Mutual respect, human dignity • Authority • Sharing of resources • Competitiveness • The development of individual potential • Tough law enforcement • Wealth redistribution

Personal Development: An in-prison model 1 BUREAUCRATIC LEGITIMACY HUMANITY ‘THE TRANSPARENCY AND RESPONSIVITY OF THE PRISON/PRISON SYSTEM AND ITS MORAL RECOGNITION OF THE INDIVIDUAL’ (3. 97) ‘AN ENVIRONMENT CHARACTERISED BY KIND REGARD AND CONCERN FOR THE PERSON’ . 144 *** (3. 27) . 166 *** STAFF PROFESSIONALISM ‘STAFF CONFIDENCE AND COMPETENCE IN THE USE OF AUTHORITY’ (3. 53) PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT (‘HELP WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF POTENTIAL’) . 145 *** R 2 = 69. 2 (3. 28) HELP AND ASSISTANCE ‘SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PROBLEMS, INCLUDING DRUGS, HEALTHCARE + PROGRESSION’ . 413 ***. 101 *** (3. 37) ORGANISATION + CONSISTENCY 1 Controlling for function, + public/private ownership/ management ‘THE CLARITY, PREDICTABILITY AND RELIABILITY OF THE PRISON’ (3. 08) 11

Models of order, safety, confidence/pride, prisoners. . Laxity/chaos Disregard for safety ‘corrupted authority’ Avoidance, indifference Non-observation No professional confidence Uncertainty, fear Prisoners as ‘? ? ’ (irrelevant) Good order (dynamic) Repression Relational safety Fragile safety ‘dynamic’, interactive ‘reassurance/defensive Proactive, intervenes ’ Informal resolution vigilant conflicts suspicious, risk. Guarded, intelligent oriented trust distant Professional Bad/over confidence Intimidation, bluntness Comfort, assurance, courage Prisoners as ‘experiencing subjects’ ‘experienced objects’

A Typology of officer working personalities • Enforcer (Cynical) Practices rigid, ‘by the book’ aggressive enforcement, actively seeks out violations, rarely makes exceptions, has little empathy for others, takes unreasonable risks to personal safety, sees most things as either good or bad, and is quick to use threats, verbal coercion and physical force. • Avoider (Cynical) Minimises offender contact, often does not ‘see’ an offence, avoids confrontation and coercion, views interpersonal aspects of the job as not part of the job, often backs down from confrontation and blames others. • Reciprocator (Tragic) Wants to help people, assists them in resolving their problems, prefers clinical or social work strategies, may be inconsistent when making exceptions, prefers to ‘go along to get along’ and tends not to use coercive authority or physical force even when it is justified. Allows prisoners to keep the wing quiet. • Professional (Tragic) Is open and non-defensive, makes exceptions when warranted, prefers to gain cooperation and compliance through communication, but is willing to use coercive power or force as a last resort.

Good authority and outcomes BUREAUCRATIC LEGITIMACY HUMANITY ‘THE TRANSPARENCY AND RESPONSIVITY OF THE PRISON/PRISON SYSTEM AND ITS MORAL RECOGNITION OF THE INDIVIDUAL’ (3. 97) ‘AN ENVIRONMENT CHARACTERISED BY KIND REGARD AND CONCERN FOR THE PERSON’ . 144 *** (3. 27) . 166 *** STAFF PROFESSIONALISM ‘STAFF CONFIDENCE AND COMPETENCE IN THE USE OF AUTHORITY’ (3. 53) PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT (‘HELP WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF POTENTIAL’) . 145 *** R 2 = 69. 2 (3. 28) HELP AND ASSISTANCE ‘SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PROBLEMS, INCLUDING DRUGS, HEALTHCARE + PROGRESSION’ . 413 ***. 101 *** (3. 37) ORGANISATION + CONSISTENCY 1 Controlling for function, + public/ private ownership/management ‘THE CLARITY, PREDICTABILITY AND RELIABILITY OF THE PRISON’ (3. 08) 14

Fairness • ‘An example of fairness is when there was a football match on and it went to extra time; it was time to bang us up but they let us stay out and watch it’ (Prisoner). • I can normally get them to do what I want without having to resort to putting them on report. You can’t be doing the job well if you’re having to place them on report all the time. . . I explain to them — just because you got out of bed the wrong side this morning. . . get yourself up, washed, dressed, go to work, then you’ll be able to get your canteen on Friday. it’s your choice. I’ll leave you to get on with it. I’ll close the door, within a few seconds the bell will go off. And they just go to work. (Officer) • ‘This jail is a complex place, there always exceptions to things, and people should be treated as individuals’ (Senior manager).

Ross Harrison (1992) ‘The Equality of Mercy’: • There is an important distinction between ‘the mechanical operation of rules’ and ‘the question of justice’ in a particular case. Rules are ‘blunt instruments’ which do not take into account the complexity or individuality of a particular case - human beings want their interests treated mercifully, not impartially.

Reading the situation right • For Murdoch, the most crucial moral virtue was a kind of attentiveness to detail. . . which could see what was really going on in a situation and respond accordingly. • . . What so often keeps us from acting morally is not that we fail to follow the moral rules; rather, it is that we misunderstand the situation before us. When we describe the situation to ourselves, we simply get it wrong. To get the description right — to accurately grasp the nature of the motivations at play, to see the relevant individuals in their wholeness and particularity, and to see what, morally speaking, is at stake — is to grasp the ‘shape’ of the situation. 17

Conclusion and recap • ‘What is distinctive about prison officer work is that it is based on, or requires, a sophisticated, dynamic and often subtle use of power, through enduring and challenging relationships which has effects on the recipients. This is highly skilled work. Competence in this area – in the use of authority – contributes most to prisoner perceptions of the quality of life in, or moral performance of, a prison’. • Liebling, A ‘Distinctions and distinctiveness in the work of prison officers: legitimacy and authority revisited’ European Journal of Criminology 8(6) 2011: 488.

Thank you. . .