ABSTRACT
The role of prison managers is frequently elevated in discussions about prisons. This chapter provides an overview of how the work of prison managers has been theorized and discussed historically, but also attempts to provide an exploration of their contemporary working lives, drawing in part upon ethnographic research conducted in England and Wales. It discusses the ways in which the working world of prison managers has previously been described, which have alternatively focused on the polar extremes, either emphasizing the empowered agency of prison managers or their conformity to the constraints placed upon them by global changes in organizational practice, including the development of managerialism. The chapter then provides an empirical illustration of everyday practice, drawing upon an ethnographic study of prison managers. This particularly focuses on how two performance measures are interpreted, practised and understood by prison managers, illuminating how both global and local forces shape and intersect in their thinking and behaviour.
