Practice without prospect: The imaginary response to the recording and investigations of sexual assault in prison

Abstract

This article draws on Incident Reporting System data from the National Offender Management Service over a ten-year period (2004–2014) and limited, small-scale interviews with four custodial managers. Pat Carlen's work (2008) on imaginary penalities provides the theoretical framework for an assessment of the reporting, recording and initial response to sexual assaults in prisons in England and Wales. The article argues that the recording of sexual assaults became part of a response to new management systems that emphasised compliance, process and audit rather than realising safety in custody. Although the data shows substantial levels of initial activity among staff it is, in essence, practice without prospect. The article suggests that outcomes generally for sexual assaults in prisons in England and Wales are uncertain. Incident reporting has become a bureaucratic process ‘or paper shadow’, which Goffman described as showing ‘what has been done by whom, what is to be done, and who last had responsibility for it’ (Goffman 1961: 73).