With Age Comes Respect? And for Whom Exactly? A Quantitative Examination of White and BAME Prisoner Experiences of Respect Elicited through HM Inspectorate of Prisons Survey Responses
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Author | ANTHONY QUINN,NICK HARDWICK,ROSIE MEEK |
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12413 |
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 2. June 2021 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12413
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 251–272
With Age Comes Respect? And for
Whom Exactly? A Quantitative
Examination of White and BAME
Prisoner Experiences of Respect
Elicited through HM Inspectorate of
Prisons Survey Responses
ANTHONY QUINN, NICK HARDWICK and ROSIE MEEK
Anthony Quinn is Research Assistant, Nick Hardwick is Professor of Criminal
Justice, and Rosie Meek is Professor of Psychology and Criminology,
Department of Law and Criminology, Royal Holloway, University of London
Abstract: Through the analysis of survey data, collected by HM Inspectorate of Prisons
between 2010 and 2019, we examine the responses of adult male prisoners of different
ages and ethnicities and the extent to which they report being treated with respect by staff.
Survey responses from 62,664 prisoners support the conclusion that Black, Asian and
Minority Ethnic (BAME) prisoners are less likely than white prisoners to report that
they are treated with respect; younger prisoners are less likely than older prisoners to do
so. Our macro-level findings demonstrate that there is considerable variation between
the subgroups within these broad categories and that a simplification of experiences may
lead to incorrect assumptions about the experiences of minority groups in prison. These
survey data should be used in conjunction with other resources, such as official data and
operational statistics, to support detailed examination of prisoner treatment and conditions
for safe, decent and rehabilitative prisons.
Keywords: age; Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups; prisons;
quantitative research; staff respect; survey data
Background
This article arises from a feasibility study conducted by the authors in part-
nership with HM Inspectorate of Prisons for England and Wales(HMIP) to
examine whether data archived by HMIP can be made more widely acces-
sible for research purposes. Within the last two decades, the Inspectorate
has systematically collected survey data from prisoners as part of their
inspection process that includes all prisons in England and Wales (see HM
251
C
2021 The Authors. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League
and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-N-
oDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is prop-
erly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 2. June 2021
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 251–272
Inspectorate of Prisons 2019a). This study uses data on the experiences
of prisoners of different ages and ethnic backgrounds and illustrates the
importance and value of these data for future research.
Positive relationships between prisoners and prison officers are funda-
mental to a healthy and well-functioning prison (Crewe, Liebling and Hul-
ley 2015; Johnson, Rochlau and Martin 2016; Kumari, Caulfield and New-
berry 2012; Liebling, Price and Shefer 2011; McGuire 2018). Central to
good relationships is the value of respect, which is one of the most im-
portant aspects of prison life (Butler 2008; Butler and Maruna 2009; Hul-
ley,Liebling and Crewe 2011). Respectful staff-prisoner relationships facil-
itate an orderly prison environment (Johnson, Rochelau and Martin 2016;
McGuire 2018; Molleman and van der Broek 2014; Sparks, Bottoms and
Hay 1996) and evoke perceptions of ‘fairness, respect and justice’ (Liebling,
Price and Shefer 2011, p.101). Prisoner distress, ‘can be explained by sig-
nificant differences in levels of respect, fairness and humanity shown to
prisoners by staff’ (Liebling 2011, p.533) so it is important to monitor pris-
oner experiences with staff. Staff can be perceived as the embodiment of an
establishment and its fairness (Liebling 2011). Prison scholars have repeat-
edly demonstrated a link between the treatment and conditions of pris-
oners and their rehabilitation (Foucault 1975; Liebling and Maruna 2005;
McNeill and Weaver 2007; Rotman 1990).
The degree to which prisoners perceive that they are treated with re-
spect and whether this differs by age and ethnicity can be understood from
the prisoner surveys that are part of the inspections conducted by HMIP.
Other characteristics of prisoners, including gender, described by Corston
(2007), will affect experiences of respect; however these are major topics
in their own right and for reasons of space and capacity, this article focuses
on adult male prisoners. This study analyses more than 60,000 prisoner
surveys conducted between 2010 and 2019 by HMIP and it is the first to
investigate the themes of age and ethnicity in prison with such a compre-
hensive dataset. Within the HMIP prisoner survey,the first question within
the section entitled ‘Relationships with staff’ was ‘Do most staff here treat
you with respect?’ (HM Inspectorate of Prisons 2019b, p.118). We analyse
responses to this question and our objectives are threefold:
•to identify differences in experiences of respect in prison across age
groups;
•to investigate how experiences of respect further differ by ethnicity;
•to provide a macro-level analysis of how experiences of staff respect dif-
fers within each Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) category.
The concept of ‘respect’ is complex and difficult to operationalise, but this
is why it merits academic attention (Watson 2020). Millie (2016) provides
an apt conceptualisation of how respect might be received within the crim-
inal justice system with the notion that a law enforcement officer might
not agree with a person’s perspective or approve of their actions, but they
should still treat every person with dignity. A survey question such as ‘Do
most staff here treat you with respect?’, might not be interpreted uniformly
252
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2021 The Authors. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League
and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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