Written evidence from by Dr Jamie Bennett
1.1 This submission discusses the working lives of prison managers. Prison governors have often been seen as heroic figures that set the moral tone for their establishment and single-handedly determine success or failure. Such accounts ignore the wider context within which prison managers operate and how this shapes their practice. In particular, prison managers have to balance external pressures in particular the target-setting and control of ‘managerialism’, with the internal and deeply-rooted occupational cultures. They balance these demands in a way that enables them to express their own values and individuality. Organisational reform needs to be pay attention to all three influences: individual agency, global changes and local cultures.
2.1 Dr Jamie Bennett is Governor of HMP Grendon & Springhill, having worked in the prison system for 20 years. He has held senior posts in a range of different prisons and has been a Governing Governor since 2008. He has also completed research into prison management, including undertaking a PhD at University of Edinburgh (2005-12). He has published extensively on this topic, most significantly the monograph The working lives of prison managers published in 2015, and also co-editing the collection Understanding prison staff published in 2008. Additionally, since 2004 he has edited Prison Service Journal, a bi-monthly peer review publication.
Understanding ‘prison managerialism’
3.1 The role of prison managers is frequently elevated in discussions about prisons. One study cited half a dozen official and academic publications that attest to the central importance of the prison governor. These policy papers and research studies have painted prison managers in a heroic light, capable of single-handedly steering organisational success and moral climate. However, no individual or organisation sits in isolation and any consideration has to be situated in a broader social context. As well as individual values and character, the work of prison governors are shaped by external structures including developments in public management, and internal pressures from the prevailing occupational culture. These three factors will be briefly described: individual agency, global change and occupational culture.
3.2 In relation to individual agency, Andrew Rutherford published a research study in 1993 in which he described criminal justice management as an arena characterized by competing ideologies. He described the three main clusters of values or ‘credos’ that shape individual practice. The first was ‘punitiveness’, which included a dislike and moral condemnation of offenders, and the belief that as few fetters as possible be placed upon the authorities on the pursuit of criminals who, when caught, should be dealt with in ways that are harsh and degrading. The second he described as ‘expedient managerialism’, which focussed on disposing of the tasks at hand as smoothly and efficiently as possible. The third known as ‘humanity’ featured empathy with those offenders and victims, optimism that constructive work can be done, adherence to the rule of law so as to restrict state powers, and an insistence on open and accountable procedures. This account highlights the different professional values that prison governors hold and that shape their practice
3.3 With regard to global change, there has been a move towards a dominant approach to management in public services. This includes creating larger organisations with hierarchical structures that attempt to monitor and control the behaviour of employees through target setting and the use of information technology. It also encompasses the use of Human Resource Management techniques such as recruitment, reward, appraisal, development, communication and consultation in order to shape the ways that employees think about their work, enlisting them as corporate citizens. This trend has sometimes been termed as ‘managerialism’. These developments have influenced prison management since the late 1980s. It is important to recognise that such changes are not merely technical, but also have significant cultural impact. In particular, they have a role in altering professional orientations and outlooks. It has been argued that more governors are adopting the ‘expedient managerialism’ credo.
3.4 The third element is that of local culture. There is a strong occupational culture within prisons, which broadly has three elements. The first is insularity; that prison officers have an internal focus, strong bonds of solidarity with colleagues and are cut off professionally and socially from those outside of prisons. The second element is staff-prisoner relationships, where it has been argued that there is broad consensus about what constitutes the ‘right’ relationships with prisoners (or at least what are the ‘wrong’ sorts). This is a hierarchical relationship that emphasises a professional and social distance. The third element is masculinity including traditional male qualities of dominance, authoritativeness and aggressiveness.
3.5 The work of prison managers has to be situated within this context, understanding the processes of global change, the deeply-rooted enduring local cultures, and the values held by individuals. These are forces that are not easily accommodated but interact in complex ways that sometimes are compatible and sometimes conflicting. The craft of prison governing is in negotiating the relationship between these forces, making sense of the dynamic inter-relationship and tensions between managerialism and traditional culture in a way that is personal and distinct. This ongoing process of accommodation, adaption, interpretation and negotiation, blending the local and the global, has been described as ‘prison managerialism’. Organisational reform needs to pay attention to this context and all elements that it comprises: individual agency, global change and local cultures.
The values of prison measurement
3.6 The most prominent aspect of global change in public management has been the rise of ‘managerialism’, including the expansion of structures for setting targets and monitoring delivery. In considering the current plans for prison reform, it is relevant to consider this within the context of ‘prison managerialism’, in particular how this has reshaped individual agency and local cultures.
3.7 With regard to individual agency, one of the aims of managerialism is to go beyond imposing external regulation and create a degree of self-government and self-control. Performance monitoring and measurement has now become deeply embedded within the practice of prison managers so that they not only conform to requirements but see the attainment of targets as ‘our core business’. They have actively and enthusiastically engaged with the growth of managerial practices. This has marked a professional shift towards the values of ‘expedient managerialism’.
3.8 Having said this, different measures are perceived and responded to in different ways. Harder measures such as key performance targets and audits tend to more enthusiastically and extensively incorporated into practice. It is softer measures that involve a degree of judgement and directly incorporate the experience of prisoners, such as prison inspection and measuring the quality of prison life (MQPL) assessments, that are more likely to be resisted and their impact watered down. The reason for these differing responses can be explained through occupational culture. The harder measures offer a means through which the complex tasks of prison management can be simplified and controlled. They provide a means of managing risk or at least presenting the appearance of doing so. They are also more amenable to management action. They are clearer and more predictable and managers can influence results. In contrast, those measures based upon structured judgement and prisoner perceptions are more unpredictable and unmanageable. The measures themselves therefore differ in the degree to which they are perceived as intrinsically risky for managers and to which they could provide a means through which managers could control risk. Targets and audits also provide a set of tools that reinforce the organisational hierarchy and create a shared sense of purpose, often drawing upon masculine appeals to competitive instincts. They play with the grain of the occupational culture, reinforcing a hierarchical and highly controlled institution in masculine ways. In contrast, the softer measures of inspection and MQPL were seen as more problematic because they were complex and harder to control, but also because of the perceived priority paid to prisoners’ needs and views. The cultural context was important in understanding the differences in how measures were understood and practiced.
3.9 Although measures such as MQPL and prison inspection are often resisted in this context, they are essential as means through which ‘humanity’ values are promoted and maintained. Inspection in particular has had an important role in this regard. Any move towards reforming inspection to be more concerned with internal management practice and less with external human rights standards is likely to a cultural impact in reducing concern for ‘humanity’ and increasing the focus on ‘expedient managerialism’.
Beyond ‘prison managerialism’
3.10 In considering future reform in the context of ‘prison managerialism’, it is again important to pay attention to the three elements of individual agency, global change and local culture.
3.11 The growth of managerialism has seen shifts in the thinking and behaviour of prison managers, becoming more compliant and concerned with organisational efficiency, and less with the wider moral context of imprisonment. This has been reinforced not only through the structures of monitoring, but also through HR techniques, including recruitment and selection. Re-imagining the role of the prison manager will require a coherent HR strategy including recruitment, selection, training and appraisal. Such a re-imagining should be situated in an appreciation of the context in which managers operate and their potential to resist or mitigate the excesses of managerialism or even to ‘remoralise’ the environment. This presents an alternative perception of how managerialism and managers should operate. This recognises the limitation and fallibility of performance measurement and highlights the role of human agency to enable practice which is sensitive to the social, interpersonal and psychological aspects of prisons. That is not to say that there should be a return to unconstrained individualism, which would be problematic, but instead it is an argument for the creative application of skills informed by values. This form of ‘craftsmanship’ takes place in a situation where practitioners do not simply comply with what they are asked to do, but instead strive to do their job well for its own sake and take time to pause, reflect and critically explore their work in its context. Such an approach needs to be developed, supported and nurtured if it is to flourish. It requires an organisation that not only tolerates different voices and views, but embraces this.
3.12 In relation to global change, the process of managerialism has heralded profound changes in organisational practice. The notion of empowerment needs to be seen in this context. Does this herald a period of greater diversity or merely a recognition that professional compliance is so deeply embedded that intensive control is no longer required? A positive view of empowerment might be that it combines increased trust in professionals who understand their accountability and role within the organisation, with a recognition of the limitations of centralised monitoring and control. This could open up a means through which more locally attuned approaches could be developed to meet central government aims.
3.13 Centralised control within this system should be limited. The organisational purpose should be defined, albeit that will inevitably be complex and contested. Central monitoring should be limited to a small number of highly significant areas such as inspection outcomes and proxy reoffending measures. Other targets and measures should be defined locally involving prisoners, staff and the local community. This will enable the development of local dialogue regarding strategies and pathways towards cultural change, which can be adapted and reviewed in light of circumstances. This approach draws upon the ideas of ‘new public governance’, which moves away from highly centralised and controlled ‘expedient managerialism’, towards a greater appreciation of operating context and different values.
3.14 Together, this is a framework reflects the dynamics captured in the notion of ‘prison managerialism’, one in which managers undertake a series of complex negotiations and interpretations. However, it also offers a development of this. First, by offering a clear articulation of the role of managers to creatively engage with the various pressures playing upon them, it provides a means to understand and engage with this context. Second, it intentionally involves a wider range of interested parties, situating public services in a public space, rather than a narrow organizational hierarchy. Third, it explicitly advocates that public managers participate in dialogue about values as a central feature of their role. Rather than the instrumental and tightly controlled structures of managerialism, this framework revives the idea of agency, albeit within bounds, with managers bringing creativity and political engagement directly into their work. Such an approach has wide implications, pointing towards a reconstruction of not only of individual practice, professional skills and institutional structures, but also a redistribution of power from the centre.
Further details of the issues discussed in this submission can be found in the following publications by the author:
Bennett, J. (2015) The working lives of prison managers: Global change, local culture and individual agency in the late modern prison. Basingstoke. Palgrave Macmillan
Bennett, J. (2014) Resisting the audit explosion: The art of prison inspection in Howard Journal of criminal justice in Howard Journal of criminal justice. Vol.53:5 p.449-67.
Bennett, J, Crewe, B and Wahidin, A (eds) (2008) Understanding Prison Staff. Cullompton. Willan.
Prison Service Journal No. 222 (2015) Special Edition: Prison Management available at https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/sites/crimeandjustice.org.uk/files/PSJ%20222%20November%202015.pdf
5 January 2017