‘It causes a lot of problems’: Relational ambiguities and dynamics between prisoners and staff in a women's prison
| Published date | 01 May 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14773708221140870 |
| Author | Ben Crewe,Anna Schliehe,Daria Aleksandra Przybylska |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
‘It causes a lot of problems’:
Relational ambiguities and
dynamics between prisoners
and staff in a women’s prison
Ben Crewe
Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK
Anna Schliehe
Geographisches Institut, Universität Bonn, Germany
Daria Aleksandra Przybylska
Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK
Abstract
Staff–prisoner relationships have long been recognised as lying ‘at the heart of the whole prison
system’(Home Office, 1984: para. 16; Liebling, 2011). However, relatively few accounts of
women’s imprisonment have focussed on staff–prisoner relationships specifically, whether describ-
ing their terms and dynamics or relating their characteristics to broader ideas of power, trust or
legitimacy. In this article, based on semi-ethnographic fieldwork in a women’s prison in England,
we seek to do something of both, analysing the emotional and relational complexity of staff–
prisoner relationships in the context of women’s life histories, and the ways that they intersect
with flows of penal power and powerlessness. The article illuminates the complexity and emo-
tional intensity of these relationships, first, by outlining their core features, as described by female
prisoners –blurred boundaries, infantilisation, pettiness, inconsistency and favouritism –and then
by seeking to explain the complex entanglements of power and dependence that result. These
explanations include the relative powerlessness and vulnerability of women in prison, their bio-
graphical experiences of abuse and trauma, and a tendency for uniformed staff to be somewhat
careless in their use of power, while seeking to build close and supportive relationships with pris-
oners and engaging in forms of benign paternalism. The article concludes that women’s prisons
Corresponding author:
Ben Crewe, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK.
Email: bc247@cam.ac.uk
Correction (December 2022): This article has been updated with minor grammatical or style corrections
since its original publication.
Article
European Journal of Criminology
2023, Vol. 20(3) 925–946
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14773708221140870
journals.sagepub.com/home/euc
represent a challenge to models of penal order, authority and legitimacy precisely because of the
relational nature of the flow of power that tends to characterise them.
Keywords
Boundaries, legitimacy, staff–prisoner relationships, women’s prisons
Introduction
We need consistency, we need clear boundaries and guidelines, but we also need compassion.
[…] I am constantly in a state of anxiety, every day, as soon as that door opens. […] Because
you don’t know what officer is on, you don’t know what mood they’re in, you don’t know
whether they’re going to be helpful to you today or they’re going to be dismissive. (Zara)
Staff–prisoner relationships have long been recognised as lying ‘at the heart of the
whole prison system’(Home Office, 1984: para. 16; Liebling, 2011), and an extensive
body of research on staff–prisoner relationships has explored their importance for
issues such as prisoner quality of life, order and legitimacy (inter alia, Beijersbergen
et al., 2015; Brunton-Smith and McCarthy, 2016; Liebling, 2000, 2011; Liebling et al.,
2011; Molleman and Van Ginneken, 2015; Sparks et al., 1996). Because authority is
exercised, and legitimacy negotiated, via staff–prisoner relationships, getting these rela-
tionships ‘right’is essential (Liebling, 2004). As Liebling (2011: 491) argues, however,
‘right’relationships are distinct from ‘good’relationships: while the latter tend to be ‘too
informal, lacking boundaries and professional distance’, or, conversely, too distant and
disengaged, right relationships lie ‘somewhere between formality and informality, close-
ness and distance, policing-by-consent and imposing order’. More recently, in showing
how a combination of the ‘absence’or ‘presence’of authority alongside its relative
‘weight’produce different levels of legitimacy, and differing legitimacy deficits,
Crewe et al. (2014) have highlighted the complexity of establishing relationships that
provide engagement and intervention without being unduly oppressive.
Such findings have been based almost exclusively on research conducted in men’s
prisons. Meanwhile, with relatively few exceptions, in studies of women’s imprisonment,
the themes of authority, justice and legitimacy –and their interaction with staff–prisoner
relationships –have been rather neglected. As Liebling (2009: 20) argues, the main focus
of most studies of female prisoners has been ‘the private, the domestic and the sexual’,
with gender foregrounded over themes that are conceptually central in the literature on
men’s imprisonment. Yet women’s gendered experiences and their orientation to
matters such as fairness and power are likely to intersect. Bosworth (1999), for
example, criticises the omission of women’s perspectives from studies of penal legitim-
acy, proposing that ‘women ground the symbolic language of rights and fairness in their
sense of […] identity, indicating that the circumstances under which they recognise the
legitimate authority of the staff and institution are dependent on a framework of evalu-
ation which is tied to their sense of self’(Bosworth, 1999: 126). Likewise, Liebling
(2009) suggests that core penological issues, such as trust, authority and justice, seem
especially pertinent to imprisoned women precisely because they are of such importance
in the lives of women generally.
926 European Journal of Criminology 20(3)
To continue reading
Request your trial