ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the construction and display of masculinity in a local prison in the United Kingdom. This is a predominantly male institutional environment where only four women prison officers work. The chapter argues that the men inside the prison highly prize and use their manliness to establish and maintain self esteem, meaning and power. The expression of masculinity is an essential survival strategy for staff and inmates alike. The chapter focuses on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork and examines the occupational culture of prison officers. It discusses some of strategies; displays of composure, strength and physical control; the exercise of power and bargaining skills; ritual combat and linguistic display. Officers and prisoners engaged in games or forms of ritual combat, in order to challenge one another. Linguistic displays are also used in the ritualised contest of the prison. Arguments, shouting and verbal abuse are generally directed by prisoners towards particular officers, or the prison system as a whole.
