ABSTRACT
What makes a good officer? … I don’t know. It must be a pretty hard balance because I mean you’ve got to try and develop your interpersonal relationships with others so that you can control an environment without resorting to violence every minute of the day. And you’ve got to be aware of security requirements as well. I think … you need somebody who’s very comfortable with themselves so that they feel secure enough … I’m sure a lot of it comes with experience and time in the job and … you know, learning from past errors and so forth, but I think you need people with brains … I don’t think it’s just a matter of being able to turn up here … I think there’s a lot more to it. (Prisoner, in Liebling et al. 1997)
It is in fact remarkable how little serious attention has been paid to prison officers in the quite extensive literature on prison life. It is almost as though they were, like the postman in GK Chesterton’s celebrated detective story, so commonplace and routine a feature of the scene as to be invisible. Yet their role is of critical importance. (Hawkins 1976: 85)
Introduction
This book arose out of several pieces of commissioned research and some lively discussions with senior managers, prison staff and
prisoners about ‘the role of the prison officer’ over a number of years. Some of our recent research has looked, in particular, at prison officers ‘at their best’ and we intend to draw on that material here. We were invited to produce a single, accessible volume in which some helpful thinking about the modern prison officer could be made available to those working in prisons, others looking for an introductory survey of the literature, and students. It is, we hope, an informative, readable and appropriately sympathetic analysis of the often neglected or stereotyped prison officer and a helpful guide to further reflection and reading.1
