‘That's not my name’: prisoner deference and disciplinarian prison officers

Abstract

It has long been documented that prisoner deference is essential if prison officers are to effectively undertake their control functions (Sykes, 1958 Sykes, G. 1958. Society of Captives, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]; Goffman, 1963 Goffman , E. 1963 , Asylums , Harmondsworth : Penguin . [Google Scholar]). Whilst there is evidence that there exists a number of prison officer working personalities (Carrabine, 2004 Carrabine , E. 2004 , Power, Discourse and Resistance , Aldershot : Ashgate . [Google Scholar]; Scott, 2008 Scott, D. 2008. “‘Creating ghosts in the penal regime: prison officer occupational morality and the techniques of denial’”. In Understanding Prison Staff, Edited by: Bennett, J., Crewe, B. and Wahidin, A. Devon: Willan. [Google Scholar]), it is clear that a significant number of prison officers, especially those who consider security, discipline, and control to be central to their working practices, exercise power through their personal authority (Sim, 2008 Sim, J. 2008. “‘An inconvenient criminological truth: pain, punishment and prison officers’”. In Understanding Prison Staff, Edited by: Bennett, J., Crewe, B. and Wahidin, A. Devon: Willan. [Google Scholar]). It is maintained in the critical literature that for such officers, a positive interaction only arises if prisoners recognise the officer's inherent superiority. This demand for an elevated form of respect can be understood as the deployment of an ‘asymmetrical status norm’ (Scott, 2009 Scott, D. 2009. Ghosts Beyond Our Realm: A Neo-abolitionist Analysis of Prisoner Human Rights And Prison Officer Culture, Milton Keynes: VDM Verlag. [Google Scholar]).