Securing insecurity in the ‘Blue Line’. Reliability through improvisation: The case of a temporary prison arrangement

Abstract

On 22nd July 2011, a terrorist killed 77 people in Oslo and Utøya, Norway. The day after the attack, Ila Detention and Security Prison (Ila) was asked to imprison the terrorist. In accepting this task, Ila had to improvise prison arrangements to meet the specific demands following this imprisonment. In general, prison arrangements in Norway are standardised, based on tradition, experience and legislation. In this article, we study the imprisonment of the terrorist through the lens of improvisation, to learn more about how a bureaucratic organisation such as a prison adopts alternative strategies to cope with an extraordinary situation. This can help other organisations to learn more about the need to foster the capacity to improvise from a strict rule-based approach in a given situation.This article is based on a single case study and the drawing on findings from document, observation of physical artefacts and interviews with prison managers, this article explores how Ila improvised prison arrangements to meet the specific security demands following the imprisonment of the 22/7 terrorist.