Prisoners’ perceptions of correctional officers’ behavior in English and Dutch prisons

Journal of Criminal Justice 40 (2012) 404–412

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Journal of Criminal Justice

Prisoners’ perceptions of correctional officers’ behavior in English and Dutch prisons Anja J.E. Dirkzwager a,⁎, Candace Kruttschnitt b a b

Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, The Netherlands University of Toronto, Canada

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Available online 20 June 2012

a b s t r a c t Purpose: In light of the mounting research on the “new punitiveness”, an important but largely unanswered question is the extent to which a country's penal policies and punitive sentiments are actually reflected in prisoners’ experiences. The aim of the current study is to examine how prisoners perceive correctional officers’ behavior in English and in Dutch prisons. Methods: A cross-sectional design was used, in which we conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 Dutch prisoners incarcerated in England and 25 English prisoners incarcerated in the Netherlands. The interview schedule covered a number of topics addressing divergent aspects of life in prison, including staff-prisoner relationships. Results: In English prisons, despite the ostensible efforts to improve prison life, the attitude is more confrontational, staff-prisoner relationships are more detached, and staff members seem more unresponsive and more inclined to punish. In Dutch prisons, where responsibilization and a market orientation have supposedly replaced rehabilitation, staff is perceived as more helpful and fair, and interactions with Dutch staff are more informal and less authoritarian. Conclusions: These findings suggest that penal policy and increasingly punitive sentiments in society are not necessarily mirrored in the practice of prisons, and concomitantly, in prisoners’ perceptions of correctional officers’ behavior. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction Since the 1970s many Western nations have experienced an increase in punitiveness towards crime and criminal offenders. Several scholars have discussed this shift from ‘penal welfarism’, characterized by rehabilitating offenders and a commitment to community based solutions to crime, towards a more conservative crime control policy, characterized primarily by retribution and incapacitation (Feeley & Simon, 1992; Garland, 1996, 2001). One of the key features illustrating the punitive crime control movement is the ‘reinvention’ of imprisonment, which has resulted in growing prison populations in many parts of the world (e.g. Blumstein & Beck, 1999; Hinds, 2005; Newburn, 2007; Sprott & Snyder, 2000; Tonry & Bijleveld, 2007). The paradigm case is, of course, America, where the number of incarcerated persons increased almost eightfold since 1960 (The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2008). In 2009, the incarceration rate in the Unites States was about 750 per 100,000 U.S. residents compared with 313 per 100,000 in 1985 (West, 2010). Although leading the world in imprisonment rates, the American increase in the incarceration rates is certainly not unique. In England and Wales, almost 30,000 persons were incarcerated in 1960, but by 2007 this figure had increased to more than 80,000 ⁎ Corresponding author at: NSCR, P.O. Box 71304, 1008 BH Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 20 5985476; fax: +31 20 5983975. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.JE. Dirkzwager). 0047-2352/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2012.06.004

persons (Newburn, 2007). In the Netherlands, the imprisonment rate was 27 per 100,000 residents in 1977 and it subsequently grew 375 percent to 123 per 100.000 in 2004 (Tonry & Bijleveld, 2007). Several Western nations also witnessed increasing punitiveness in other domains. This appeared, for example, in hardened media coverage of crime emphasizing the need for tougher punishments as the best way to deal with crime, politicians emphasizing a ‘tough on crime’ approach, and citizens increasingly favoring a more repressive response towards crime and offenders. Not only did public opinion research show increased support for harsher punishments in the general population (Cullen, Fisher, & Applegate, 2000; Farkas, 1999; Finckenauer, 1988; Flanagan & Caulfield, 1984; Roberts & Hough, 2005), but criminal justice policies and legislation also became more punitive. For instance, legislation was passed in several Western countries to increase the length of prison sentences, to introduce different types of ‘three strikes‘ law, and to enforce drugs laws more strictly (Boone & Moerings, 2007; Kruttschnitt & Dirkzwager, 2011; Moerings, 2007; Newburn, 2007; Van Ruller & Beijers, 1995). Prison policy was not protected from this punitive trend. Since the 1990's there have been increasing efforts to toughen the prison environment by eliminating what are often considered to be prisoners’ privileges. Support arose for the “principle of least eligibility”, suggesting that offenders are the least deserving members of society for social benefits. In relation to poor law-abiding citizens, prisoners should not be favored, and they should not be eligible for social services that were not first

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afforded to other citizens (Johnson, Bennet, & Flanagan, 1997; Sparks, 1996; Tewksbury & Mustaine, 2005). As a result, more restrictive prison regimes have been introduced and many of the programs and privileges for prisoners have been revoked or curtailed (Corrections Compendium, 2002; Finn, 1996; Johnson, Bennet, & Flanagan, 1996; Johnson et al., 1997; Kellar, 2005; Unseem & Piehl, 2008). Although, the above mentioned development may have been most pronounced in America, efforts to create more austere prison conditions or to reduce prison budgets have produced cuts in prisoners’ amenities and programs in other countries (Carlen, 1999; Downes & Van Swaaningen, 2007; Kelk, 2008; Scott, 2007). In light of this mounting research on the “new punitiveness” in several Western nations, an important but largely unanswered question is whether penal policies are actually reflected in prisoners’ experiences. Previous research examining the effects of penal policies focuses predominantly on a ’macro’ level, examining aggregate trends in incarceration rates (Cavadino & Dignan, 2006; Downes & Hansen, 2006). While useful, this approach cannot shed light on the important issue of how developments in penal policy affect prisoners’ lives. Some studies have questioned whether developments in politics and penal policy are translated into every day practices of criminal justice workers (Cullen, Lutze, Link, & Wolfe, 1989; Kruttschnitt & Gartner, 2005; Lynch, 2000). In the present study, we follow this line of inquiry and take a bottom-up approach by investigating how those who are actually experiencing penal policy - the inmates - perceive correctional officers’ behavior. We focus on interactions between prisoners and correctional officers because prison officers are ultimately responsible for putting penal policies into practice and staff-prisoner relationships are crucial to prison life. As Cullen et al. (1989) aptly described: ”The fabric of life within the correction system is shaped intimately, and daily, by the system's employees (Cullen et al., 1989, p. 33)”. Correctional officers are the employees who are front and center in the correctional system. They are responsible for maintaining an orderly, safe and human prison environment and, as day-to-day adjudicators of the prison environment, they can act (in interaction with inmates and others) as disciplinarians, administrators, managers, facilitators or even mentors (Liebling & Price, 2001). Further, for a prisoner, the correctional officer is generally the first link to the outside world, someone who can arrange visits with the doctor or lawyer, get into contact with administration or the governor, or provide telephone privileges. Additionally, prisoners indicate that the quality of their carceral lives is affected by several aspects of their relationships with staff, including being treated with respect and humanity, and receiving support from the staff (Liebling, 2004; Liebling & Arnold, 2002). Thus, the attitudes and behavior of prison officers are major determinants of the prison experience. Another reason why correctional officers have such a substantial impact on prisoners is that they are usually a prisoner's first source of social support. Imprisonment can be a stressful event, and social support is considered to be an important factor in influencing reactions to stress. Generally, having sufficient and satisfactory social support is associated with less psychological distress, like anxiety and depression (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Sarason & Sarason, 1985). Thus, social support appears to protect individuals from the negative consequences of stressful life events (Harvey, 2007; Hobbs & Dear, 2000). Translated to the prison environment, a correctional officer may provide either emotional support because he/she listens to a prisoner's concerns, or he/she may provide practical help, for instance, by providing information about the rules or helping out with application forms. Such support is not only beneficial for prisoners’ health and their adjustment to prison life, but also for facilitating prison order (Adams, 1992; Bottoms, 1999). In this paper we examine how prisoners perceive correctional officers’ behavior in English and in Dutch prisons. In what follows, we first discuss why these two countries are of interest, and present a summary of the developments in penal policy and prison conditions in England and the Netherlands during the past two decades. We then

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describe how we conducted the interviews with the Dutch prisoners incarcerated in England and the English prisoners incarcerated in the Netherlands. Although each prisoner told us his own personal story, some common themes associated with staff-prisoner relations emerged from our interviews. English and Dutch prison policy and prisons The central focus of this article is to examine prisoners’ views of correctional officers in English and in Dutch prisons. These two countries – The United Kingdom and The Netherlands - are particularly interesting because of (í) the relatively recent and significant developments in their penal policies and imprisonment rates, and (íí) the attention that has been given to these changes in comparative analyses of penal trends (Cavadino & Dignan, 2006; Downes, 1988). Our findings, however, may speak to issues of penal policy and prison management well beyond these two countries as they allow us to reflect more broadly on the question of whether, and if so how, penal policies impact prison life in correctional systems that have very different cultures and histories. Penal policy in England over at least the past two decades might best be characterized as both tumultuous and constructive. Inadequate prison conditions, overcrowding, and antagonistic relationships between prisoners and correctional officers resulted in major prison riots in the 1990s in Stangeways, Dartmoor, Bristol, and Pucklechurch. The Woolf report, which investigated the causes of these riots and suggested a series of reforms, was initially embraced as a liberal framework for the future of the penal system (Woolf, 1991). The Woolf report argued that inmates should be treated with fairness, humanity, and justice, particularly in the context of their relationships with staff. The report inspired several (practical) changes in the British penal system, including the introduction of telephones, more generous home leaves and visitation privileges, improved sanitation, and staff members being instructed to treat prisoners respectfully. 1 However, not all of the fallout from the Woolf report was positive. In some prisons, the “just treatment” recommended by Woolf resulted in ‘laxity’ (Liebling, 2004), which contributed to problems with drugs and violence, and, ultimately, a string of escapes in the mid 1990s. The reaction was swift and severe as policies were quickly implemented to control the behavior of both inmates and staff. The security and control agenda that developed in the years after these prison escapes stood in stark contrast to the ideas of the Woolf report, but it was in line with popular punitive sentiments and the growing conservative political approach to crime control. Woolf's, and other “liberal” penologists’, ideas were abandoned with the appointment of the conservative Home Secretary, Michael Howard, who signaled a return to the law and order agenda and advocated that prison regimes should be ‘decent but austere’ (Scott, 2007, p. 62). The shift to a “decent but austere” prison regime was followed by yet another move to treat the prison service like any other public service which should be cost effective and accountable. This so called “new effectiveness-plus agenda” (Liebling, 2004) consists of standards for all aspects of prison work, and highlights cost effectiveness, intolerance towards ‘failing prisons’, the protection of society, reduction of recidivism, and inter-agency cooperation (Liebling, 2004). Other important and influential developments in the British penal system included the introduction of “incentives and earned privileges,” managerialism and performance measurements, and privatization into the prison system.2 Finally, the Prison Service also developed a decency agenda which was designed to foster respectful treatment of inmates (Coyle, 2003). In sum, over the past two decades English prison policy has been characterized by a variety of complex developments which may have had different effects on the conditions of confinement and staffprisoner relationships. Although the English prison system is still experiencing problems, such as overcrowding and a shortage of staff, some positive developments in the conditions of confinement were introduced as a result of these changes. For instance, adjustments

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were made in the grievance procedures for prisoners, including the introduction of a prison ombudsman, which facilitates an inmate's ability to make a formal complaint (Vagg, 1994). In 2001, the ‘Safer Custody Program’ was implemented, which was aimed at reducing prisoner suicides by (i) appointing full-time suicide prevention coordinators, (ii) strengthening the ‘Listener’ scheme, (iii) providing additional training for staff, and (iv) collaborating with the National Health Service (Liebling, 2007a). The Prison Service also took a strong stance against racism and brutality by staff members. Beginning in 2000, they introduced the race relations liaison officer, started increasing the number of black and minority ethnic prisoners’ consultation groups, promoted mediation as a response to racial incidents, and increased the number of black and minority ethnic staff (Edgar, 2007). In 2000, failing management and dysfunctional staff cultures were also addressed in a report discussing ways to modernize the management of the English Prison Service and to improve underperforming prisons. It was suggested that staff and managers who seem unable or unwilling to cope with the demands of the job should have a period of support and training to bring them to the required standard, followed by ‘further action’ taken against those who remained unwilling to comply (Home Office, 2000). Based on his in-depth study of prisoners in HMP Wellingborough, Crewe (2007, 2010) concluded that, at least superficially, the Prison Service's emphasis on interpersonal decency seems to have improved staff-prisoner relationships. Prisoners with a long history of confinement reported that the current prison staff are more approachable and less authoritarian than the staff have been in the past, and that life on the wing has become more civilized (Crewe, 2007, 2010). Therefore, in the past decade concerted efforts have been made to improve the quality of life in English prisons. The Netherlands, on the other hand, has long been admired for their tradition of open and humane prison conditions (Downes, 1988; Downes & Van Swaaningen, 2007). For a significant proportion of the twentieth century, prison sentences were relatively short, and prison regimes were characterized by an emphasis on rehabilitation, based on work, education, recreation, and other activities. Even in the 1970s, relatively liberal prison conditions were implemented with respect to receiving visitors (including unsupervised visits), sending and receiving letters, wearing one's own clothes, making formal complaints, and furloughs (Verhagen, 1999). Furthermore, relationships between staff and prisoners and between prisoners themselves were generally peaceful (Van Swaaningen & De Jonge, 1995). In the past two decades, however, budget cuts, a growing punitive climate among the population at large, politicians and members of the judiciary system, and a loss of the rehabilitation ideal have resulted in more restricted prison regimes and conditions (Downes & Van Swaaningen, 2007; Kelk, 2008; Van Swaaningen & De Jonge, 1995). The increasing punitive climate in the Netherlands was mirrored in a huge increase in incarceration rates. While the Netherlands had the lowest imprisonment rate in Europe in the 1970s, their incarceration rate today is one of the highest in the countries of Western, Northern, and Southern Europe (Tonry & Bijleveld, 2007; Walmsley, 2009). Another development illustrating the Dutch turn towards more punitive policies was the shift away from rehabilitation to incapacitation as the major goal of imprisonment (De Jonge, 2007). More emphasis was being placed on security and efficiency, and since the 1990s, a managerial discourse with a market orientation became increasingly popular in the Netherlands. The abovementioned developments have resulted in a number of changes in prison conditions in the Netherlands. In 2004, drastic budget cuts were imposed on the Dutch Prison Service. Due to these budget cuts, a standard and more austere regime without any “welfare frills” was introduced in Dutch prisons. As prisoners’ daily activities (e.g. educational programs) were curtailed, they spent more hours locked up and had fewer opportunities for maintaining contact with their families (De Jonge, 2007; Downes & Van Swaaningen, 2007; Kelk, 2008). Another consequence of the budget cuts was a substantial

reduction in prison staff, which may affect staff-prisoner relationships and prison safety. In line with the adoption of the ‘responsibilization’ rhetoric – i.e. every offender is responsible for his/her own behavior rehabilitation efforts were reduced, and only motivated prisoners could make use of educational programs and behavioral interventions. Finally, despite protests by prison governors and staff, the longstanding Dutch principle of one prisoner to a cell was abandoned (Downes & Van Swaaningen, 2007; Kelk, 2008). In sum, in the past two decades, the Netherlands moved towards more punitive penal policies, and concomitantly, prison regimes became more restricted and austere. These different turns in penal policies in England - which focused at least ostensibly on improving prisoners’ lives - and in the Netherlands – where developments seem to have hardened prison life – may have a substantial bearing on the way in which prisoners and correctional staff negotiate their daily lives. In the present study we examine prisoners’ views of correctional officers in England and the Netherlands with the goal of – indirectly - assessing how these policy shifts have been reflected in prisoners’ carceral lives. Method Procedure The current study is part of a larger project exploring how English prisoners incarcerated in the Netherlands and Dutch prisoners incarcerated in England perceive their conditions of confinement. This larger study partly replicated and extended the study of David Downes (1988), and explored whether prisoners’ experiences of imprisonment in England and the Netherlands has changed during the past two decades as a result of changes in penal policy in these two countries (Kruttschnitt & Dirkzwager, 2011). In the current study, 25 Dutch prisoners were interviewed in English prisons and 25 English prisoners were interviewed in Dutch prisons. At the start of our data collection in the Netherlands in 2008, there were 51 English prisoners held in Dutch prisons. Data collection in England started in 2009, and at that time 105 Dutch prisoners were incarcerated in England. Therefore, our final set of interviews represents about one-quarter of the total number of Dutch prisoners being held in England, and about one-half of the English prisoners being held in the Netherlands. The interviews in England were conducted in eight penitentiary institutions with different regimes (adult and young offender institutions; male & female prisons; Category B and C prisons). The interviews in the Netherlands were conducted in 12 prisons with a standard regime. 3,4 Because the interviews were held in a variety of institutions, which differed, for instance, in security level, regime, population, location, size, or staff, the results cannot be attributed to the effects of any particular prison regime, institution or governor. In general, the procedure in both countries was quite similar. First, official permission from the Dutch Prison Service and Her Majesty's Prison Service was obtained, and these two services provided us with information on the whereabouts of the foreign nationals. Secondly, we contacted the prison governors to obtain permission to conduct the interviews, and to contact the foreign national prisoners. Finally, we organized our visits to the respective prisons to meet our potential respondents. We informed all respondents about the study, and explained that their participation was voluntary and that the study was not associated with the Dutch Prison Service or Her Majesty's Prison Service. After informed consent had been given, we interviewed the respondents in private consulting rooms without the presence of prison staff. Data collection was an intensive enterprise, particularly in England, where we had to concentrate all interviews in a time frame of two separate weeks (one week in March and one week in August 2009). During the process of data collection, we had to deal with some hurdles that are inherent to working with foreign national prison populations. For instance, sometimes prisoners had

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been transferred to another penitentiary, or they had already been repatriated to their country of origin (for more information on the method: see Kruttschnitt & Dirkzwager, 2011).

Table 1 Characteristics of the Dutch and British prisoners

Interviews A qualitative approach was adopted, with semi-structured interviews. Prisoners in both countries were guided by an interview schedule, which was based on David Downes’ previous study (Kruttschnitt & Dirkzwager, 2011). This interview schedule covered a number of topics addressing divergent aspects of life in prison and the conditions of confinement. More specifically, topics that were discussed included prisoners’ perceptions of their accommodations, the food, the availability of jobs, possibilities to stay into contact with the outside world, disciplinary measures, and their relations with other inmates. Most relevant for the current study, questions were asked about the relationships between prisoners and staff. For instance, we asked prisoners what they think about the staff in the institution, and how they get along with staff. Some of the respondents had spent time in prison in their country of origin as well. These prisoners were invited to reflect on correctional officers’ behavior and staff-prisoner relationships in both countries. We also asked them what features of the Dutch [or English] prison system should be introduced into England [the Netherlands]. Prisoners without any prison experience in their own country were invited to give their opinion about the positive and negative aspects of their current prison experience in a foreign country. The interviews lasted on average one hour, and each interview was conducted by one of the two authors. Most interviews were audio taped and then transcribed verbatim, however, in some prisons in England we were not allowed to bring in a tape recorder. In this case, we took extensive notes. The transcribed interviews were subsequently coded using Atlas ti. Participants Most prisoners consented to participate. Only two Dutch prisoners we approached in England refused to participate, and seven English prisoners incarcerated in the Netherlands refused to participate in our study. 5 Table 1 presents some of the demographic and criminal justice characteristics of the Dutch prisoners incarcerated in England and of the English prisoners held in Dutch prisons. The respondents ranged in age from 20 to 63 years, and the majority of prisoners in both countries were 40 years or older. The English and the Dutch prisoners differed from each other with respect to their ethnical background. The Dutch prisoners had more diverse ethnic backgrounds, relative to the English prisoners: 92% of the English prisoners in the Netherlands were Caucasian versus only 48% of the Dutch prisoners. Compared with the English prisoners held in the Netherlands, the Dutch prisoners were more likely to report that it was their first time in prison (68% for the Dutch versus 32% for the English). Some of the prisoners had also spent time in prison in their country of origin; this was more common among the English prisoners held in the Netherlands. Almost two-thirds of the English prisoners in the Netherlands and sixteen percent of the Dutch prisoners in England reported that they had been incarcerated in their own country as well. By contrast, both groups of prisoners were similar with respect to the length of time they had served. The majority of prisoners in both countries had been in prison for less than one year at the time of our interviews. Although many of the Dutch and English prisoners had been arrested for drug related offenses, Dutch prisoners were more likely than English prisoners to have been convicted/suspected for drugs related offenses (72% versus 40%, respectively). English prisoners had been arrested for a wider range of offenses, like violent offenses and property crimes. Not all prisoners had been convicted yet at the time of our interview. Of the Dutch prisoners in England

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Age 20-29 30-39 40 + Ethnicity White, Caucasian First time in prison Yes No Prison time in own country Yes Time served 1 year or less Longer than 1 year Type of offense Drugs Violence Property Sex Other Sentencing status Remand Convicted

Dutch prisoners in England

English prisoners in the Netherlands

N = 25

N = 25

N

%

N

%

4 5 16

16 20 64

2 9 14

8 36 56

12

48

23

92

17 8

68 32

8 17

32 68

4

16

16

64

19 6

76 24

17 8

68 32

18 3 2 3 1

72 12 8 12 4

10 6 3 2 7

40 24 12 8 28

6 19

24 76

7 18

28 72

24 percent were still on remand versus 28 percent of the English prisoners in the Netherlands. Analysis We analyze how prisoners in each country perceive correctional officers’ behavior. We pay special attention to the group of prisoners who had spent time in prison in their country of origin as well (N = 20) because these prisoners experienced correctional officers’ behavior in both countries and, therefore, have a unique comparative perspective. Results Although prisoners’ accounts of their experiences in prison are inherently personal, four common themes emerged from our interviews: 1) responsiveness of staff, 2) formal – informal relationship with staff, 3) humane and fair treatment by staff, and 4) discipline. Below, we elaborate on these themes illustrating how prisoners perceive correctional officers’ behavior in English and Dutch prison. Responsiveness of staff One of the most frequently mentioned aspects of correctional officers’ behavior was the extent to which they were responsive or helpful. This theme emerged from the interviews in both countries, and illustrates the central role of prison staff for prisoners. Correctional officers are usually prisoners’ first source of support; they are the first who can be approached when a prisoner is in need of information or access to other persons or facilities. In our study, almost all prisoners commented on the responsiveness or lack of responsiveness of correctional officers. The interviews revealed substantial differences in staff-prisoner relationships between the two countries. Compared with staff in England, correctional officers in Dutch prisons were perceived as more responsive, friendlier, and more supportive. Many English prisoners held in the Netherlands were positive about Dutch staff, and felt that generally Dutch correctional officers were relaxed and helpful. According to the English

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prisoners, staff in Dutch prisons are approachable and reasonable. When prisoners need anything they can go to the correctional officers’ office and ask for help, and usually staff will help them. The provision of support is an important part of correctional officers’ work. Two different types of support could be identified from the data. First, this helpful behavior was expressed in staff's willingness to assist prisoners with more practical issues (i.e. instrumental support), like providing information, explaining the rules, helping out with application forms, or providing telephone privileges. As two prisoners put it: “If you need anything you go into the office, and if they can do it for you, they do it for you”, “Or if anything really urgent comes up and your phones are full, you can ask and if it's possible they will let you use the private phone” In addition to such instrumental support, Dutch correctional officers seem to be observant of prisoners’ wellbeing, and willing to provide emotional support (i.e. providing empathy, caring, trust, concern and listening) to prisoners when, for instance, prisoners are emotionally stressed. One prisoner told us that one of the guards arranged for him to see the pastor when he was really stressed: “It's like I went through hell in that first 5 weeks. I didn't know what was happening to the family, how this was going on. The guard realized that I was getting really stressed out, and he arranged a meeting for me to see the pastor. Um, and just getting out for an hour to talk to her made a huge difference” Another prisoner mentioned that the staff in the Netherlands are willing to take the time to sit down with you and talk to you. As he put it: “If you needed to speak to somebody about anything, you could call your mentor, or any of the guards really would be able to sit down and talk to you.” Besides the provision of practical and emotional support, English prisoners also appreciated correctional officers’ flexibility and their willingness to sometimes stretch the rules. The examples provided by prisoners of such leniency generally referred to relatively minor issues, like being able to have more books in their cells than they are officially allowed to have, or staff sometimes turning a blind eye when a prisoner went out to the yard twice instead of once a day. Although such actions may appear relatively insignificant, they are particularly important for the quality of life in prison. Sometimes, stretching the rules referred to more fundamental issues. One prisoner told us that staff showed some leniency in allowing him to use the phone when he was faced with an urgent family situation: “My baby was in the hospital. And that day, it wasn't my day to make a phone call, but I tried to talk to the security… and they gave me the opportunity to make a phone call. They said: this is a family problem… talk to them to know how your baby is.” In contrast with the prisoners in the Netherlands, Dutch prisoners housed in England were disconcerted by the English correctional officers. The following remarks are indicative of the widespread concerns that were voiced about the unhelpful, uninterested and unresponsive English prison staff: “If you ask an officer to do something, they say ‘yes’ but they don't follow through”,“Staff is very uninterested, they always say: tomorrow or fill out an application form.” The prisoners perceived the absence of a helpful and responsive attitude as frustrating because their requests to staff generally referred to matters that were important to them, like the procedures they need to follow to return to the Netherlands or information on how to contact their family. The prisoners were completely dependent

on correctional officers’ actions to collect such information; therefore, they had to make the same inquiries over and over again. Although many Dutch prisoners characterized English prisoners as unhelpful, some exceptions were noted in particular prisons. One prisoner who had been in other English prisons before he came to Bullwood Hall - a prison specifically designed for foreign nationals – told us: “But the system here is totally different … and also the officers. If you ask them something, they do it. It's unbelievable. I didn't know that was possible … The staff is kind, friendly, helpful, understanding, all the words you cannot use in the other prisons.” English prisoners in the Netherlands who had also been in prison in their own country were able to compare the prison situation in both countries. They confirmed that Dutch staff seems more helpful than English staff. A reframe we repeatedly heard was: “But here [in the Netherlands] it's more people, it's more … you can go to them and ask for something and they will talk to you and help you. In England, it's fill out a form.” The Dutch prisoners not only attributed the lack of responsiveness they found in English prisons to an unwillingness of the staff to help them, but also to environmental characteristics, such as overcrowding and the shortage of sufficient staff: “And it's not all their fault, I know there is not enough staff on the wing to sort out some things”. Formal – informal relationship with staff Another dimension of staff-prisoner relationships that emerged repeatedly from the interviews was the level of familiarity between correctional officers and prisoners. Interactions between Dutch correctional officers and prisoners were more informal and less authoritarian than interactions between English staff and prisoners. This was especially surprising for English prisoners incarcerated in the Netherlands: “Um, completely different to in England. When I was in prison [there], um … it was uh, Mr. Gov or Boss that you had to call a prison officer. Not by first-name term … you're called by your surname only. And uh you either call them by their Mr. Smith of Gov. Boss. Yeah … yeah, the staff here are on first-name terms.” Besides the way correctional officers and prisoners address each other there are other differences in the degree of friendliness or familiarity between staff and prisoners in both countries. In the Netherlands, prisoners have small talk with the officers, they laugh and joke with them, and they drink coffee or tea with the officers. This is quite different when compared with the prisoners’ experiences in English prisons. In English prisons the prisoners mentioned that they kept their distance with staff: “It's not “buddy-buddy” with the guards. You always keep a bit of distance but we have to deal with them. If one inmate is friendly with the guards, he is looked at differently.” The friendly relationships between correctional officers and prisoners in the Netherlands surprised and sometimes shocked English prisoners, as is illustrated by the following quote: “Dutch prisoners are very friendly with the guards. They'll shake hands with them, talk to them … we don't do that in England. And they're on a first name terms with them. In England you get cut up for that, they'll cut your face for that. If you'll shake hands with the guards, they'll think you're a snitch. That was really hard for me to get used to. I thought ‘wow’, he just shook hands with the guard! To me, it was a shocking thought.”

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Another English prisoner who had served time in the Netherlands as well as in England told us:

Netherlands it's a more humane approach versus a more militaristic approach in the United Kingdom:

“Now you couldn't do that in a British prison. You cannot talk to a guard in a British prison. When he talks to you, you have to go down to an office or something […] there has to be an official reason. You can't say … like guards here they talk about football, or ‘did you see Liverpool last night’, you know.”

“Yeah, they [staff] are good. They're a lot better than the staff in England … they're more humane. I mean they're people, I talk to those people. I mean whereas in England it's more military … You don't talk to a guard, they just move you along ‘come on, come on’. There's no ‘next please’, it's like an army.”

Relationships between prisoners and staff in England seem more detached and distant. This does not necessarily mean that all English prisoners preferred the attitude they encountered in Dutch prisons. Some English prisoners who had served prison time in their own country (as well as in the Netherlands) clearly liked the English system better because in England, with prison officers, you know where you stand. They did not understand the friendly relationship between officers and prisoners in the Netherlands. One prisoner explained that he had a preference for the English situation because he did not want to be friends with the correctional officers because they lock him up at night: “I don't want them sitting in my cell with me, drinking tea. Not in a million years”. At the same time that did not mean he wanted to be enemies with the staff, but he just wanted to be indifferent. Another English prisoner underscored this opinion: “I don't say hello to them [staff], why should I? There shouldn't be any connection between us”. English prisoners who had spent time in English prisons also mentioned several factors related to the different level of familiarity between correctional officers and prisoners in both countries. On the one hand, they indicated that other prisoners in England would assume you are a “snitch” if you got too friendly with the officers and this would make you vulnerable to attack. On the other hand, prisoners maintained that correctional officers in England keep prisoners at a distance: the staff do not want to get too familiar with prisoners because it may breed contempt.

Of course not all prisoners in the Netherlands had only positive opinions about Dutch prison officers, as it was made clear by this prisoner's assessment of his encounters with Dutch staff:

Humane and fair treatment staff Overall, the English prisoners reported a different attitude in Dutch prisons compared with English prisons. In England, the attitude is more confrontational, whereas in the Netherlands prison officers are polite. In the Netherlands, correctional officers will ask you to do something rather than to order or tell you to. As one prisoner explained it to us: “The attitude is a confrontational one in England. Here it isn't, you know, everywhere is polite, you know the person will ask you to do something rather than to order or tell you. And we all know the options, if you don't do it, then you're going to be forced to … but it's nice to ‘would you mind doing that’ rather than ‘get it and get that done’. It's a totally different way of doing things and I prefer that because it's on a different level. It's nicer to be pleasant and polite rather than confrontational”. Overall, prisoners in the Netherlands characterized Dutch prison staff as treating them well and decently. They told us: ‘They are fair’, and ‘They are civil’: “They treat you with respect, understanding and courtesy. They're very helpful. Every now and again you might get one that's a bit short but obviously they've got jobs to do and the pressure is on them”. A prisoner who had also spent time in an English prison compared the treatment by staff in both countries, and concluded that in the

“And now just to be treated like a human, because some of them actually look down, speak down to you and I think it's wrong.” Dutch prisoners in England were also dissatisfied with the way staff treated them but this was the rule not the exception (as it was in the Netherlands). Apparently, several of the prisoners had bad experiences, in which they felt that the prison officers were disrespectful and unfair towards prisoners. These experiences range from relatively mild to more serious negative encounters. For instance, it was reported that correctional officers did not respond to daily courtesies: “I always say ‘good morning’. But the staff frequently doesn't answer; as if the person doesn't see you as a human being”. According to some of the prisoners, English correctional officers sometimes treated prisoners with indifference or in a patronizing way. As one inmate put it: “You got some officers that just treat you like you're prisoners. Yeah, like you're prisoners, like they don't care.” Other prisoners reported instances of staff screaming at them, but more often it was just the rude and demoralizing behavior that got to the Dutch prisoners. As one inmate explained it: “There are some quite rude officers that I've met in my time at jail. Some of the staff that … they're not good for this kind of job. They're just here to dehumanize and demoralize people and they don't know how to deal…they haven't got the people skills basically to deal with prisoners.” “They look down on people, they look down on you. They talk to you like you're a tramp or like you're a criminal.” Just as not all Dutch officers were good, not all English officers were bad and some Dutch prisoners did recount instances where the English correctional officers treated them well: “But at the same time there are other officers, brilliant officers, they will stand their ground … and some of the officers will stick up for you. But then there's … 70% of the officers with just bad attitudes.” In both countries many prisoners mentioned that the interaction between staff and prisoners is a result of both parties. It is an exchange and if prisoners are courteous and respectful to officers, the officers will respect the prisoners in return: “But you know, you get only what you give. It's respect from both sides.” Similarly, if correctional officers are respectful to prisoners, this encourages good and respectful behavior in return. This is illustrated by one prisoners who told us: ”One or two guards, they come to your cell and say “please” and “thank you”, and I say “please” and “thank you” to them”. But it also works the other way round. When staff is disrespectful or rude towards prisoners, this may trigger negative responses of prisoners: “The thing is when they start shoving you like a kid, it effects some people. It causes animosity between you and them, and as soon as that happens you've got no respect for them and they've got no respect for you.”

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Overall, it can be concluded that prisoners in Dutch prisons perceive correctional officers as more helpful, more relaxed, more respectful and treating them with more humanity than in English prisons. More generally, English prisoners in the Netherlands described the atmosphere in Dutch prisons as easy going. Prisoners did not only attribute this more relaxed ambience to the attitude of Dutch correctional officers but also to other differences between the Dutch and English prison system, including prisoners generally getting along better in Dutch prisons, overcrowding and drugs problems in English prisons, and a shortage of staff in English prisons. Some prisoners suggested that such factors might also have contributed to the lack of responsiveness and the confrontational attitude of English staff. It is important, however, to realize that correctional officers’ behavior and their attitude can influence prisoners’ behavior, which may subsequently benefit the operations of prison. As one prisoner in a Dutch prison told us: “And I relaxed because the guards were more relaxed.” Discipline We observed that discipline was more severe in English prisons than in Dutch prisons. Although the type or severity of punishments staff imposed on prisoners did not seem to differ, the reported frequency of disciplinary actions did differ between the two countries. While the English prisoners reported that it was quite difficult to get a report in Dutch prisons, Dutch prisoners reported that it was quite easy to get disciplined in England. There seems to be a difference in sternness, where Dutch correctional officers were more likely than English correctional officers to first deal with a prison infraction by giving a warning rather than by writing an official report. As two prisoners told us: “I've seen the way some of these guys speak to the warden, and they don't even get a report, do you know what I mean? You wouldn't even get a report in England; you'd get kicking, do you know what I mean?”, “You have to try very hard [to get disciplined]. … my neighbor … he was up in another section, and you can't go into the section… there's a rule, you just can't walk in, so you knock on the door and you wait. But he's right up in the room, so they put him on report, locked him up. And then the guard came and said: ‘Look, I'm going to let you out of report, but please don't go over there again’.” On the other hand, prisoners in England repeatedly noted that it was difficult to stay out of trouble because English staff seemed eager to catch prisoners making a mistake and to lock them up. In this respect, some prisoners, as the following indicates, described English staff as ‘key happy’ and ‘overzealous’: “Over here, the officers … they can take your TV anytime they want. So, I'm saying they don't like you, they just take your TV. And you can't do nothing. So, it's like that.” According to the prisoners in English prisons, it was also difficult to avoid disciplinary actions because of the many, ‘little, silly rules’: “It's quite easy to get disciplined. Some of the stuff that they come up with … I mean. … So there's a guy on our wing … what did he get? They were playing football outside, and the pitch is next to the kitchen, the canteen. One of the guys from the canteen gave the guy a piece of dumpling, and he took it, and went back and no problems. Next day he got a written up warning saying … you got an annex because you took some food out of the kitchen.” Conclusion Recent work in comparative penology focuses predominantly on the aggregate trends in incarceration rates. Although analyzing

these trends is an important and valuable endeavor, it tells us little about what is going on “on the ground” or inside the institutions as their populations shift. The aim of the present study is to examine how those actually experiencing the ramifications of changing penal policies– the prisoners – perceive correctional officers’ behavior in English and Dutch prisons. We focused on interactions between prisoners and correctional officers because prison officers are ultimately responsible for putting penal policies into practice. The interviews held with prisoners in the two countries revealed substantial differences in staff-prisoner relationships. In English prisons, despite the ostensible efforts to improve prison life, correctional officers seem more unresponsive, the attitude is more confrontational, staffprisoner relationships seem more detached, and English prison staff seems more eager to discipline prisoners than Dutch prison staff. In Dutch prisons, where responsibilization and a market orientation have supposedly replaced rehabilitation and prison life seems to have hardened, staff were perceived as relaxed and supportive; their treatment of prisoners was seen as respectful and fair. Additionally, in Dutch prisons, staff-prisoner relationships are more informal and less authoritarian and Dutch correctional officers seem more likely than English correctional officers to first deal with prison infractions by giving a warning. Although England and the Netherlands share a general movement towards a more punitive approach regarding crime control and imprisonment during the past decades (e.g. increasing prison populations, more punitive legislation, and a more punitive approach towards managing prisoners), both countries show some contrary developments in their prison policy as well. In the introduction, we argued that the different developments in prison policy in England and in the Netherlands might have affected staff-prisoner relationships and, concomitantly, how prisoners perceive correctional officers’ behaviors. Our conclusion seems less straightforward, however. Despite the Netherlands shift toward more punitive policies and austere prison conditions, and despite attempts in England to improve prison life, prisoners had a more positive judgment of Dutch correctional officers’ behavior compared with English correctional officers’ behavior. Our findings, then, are consistent with both the broad assertion that politics and penal policy are not always translated into everyday practices of criminal justice workers (Cullen et al., 1989; Kruttschnitt & Gartner, 2005; Lynch, 2000) and, the more specific argument that changes in prison policies are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve if the correctional staff responsible for carrying out the changes are not interested in implementing them (Hussemann & Page, 2011; McLennan, 2008; Rothman, 1980). Hussemann and Page (2011) noted that resistance from custodial staff in the U.S. during the years following World War II helped to undermine certain rehabilitative attempts. Others have subsequently suggested that this disjuncture between policy and practice has been reversed with the advent of more punitive prison policies and correctional officers’ apparent support for rehabilitative programs (Cullen, Latessa, Burton, & Lombardo, 1993; Farkas, 1999). These findings obviously resonate with our work by suggesting that efforts to change the prison climate have relatively little to do with the passage of administrative policies and everything to do with the prison culture – a culture which is decidedly imbued with the traditions of its correctional staff. Our findings also resonate with previous investigations of prisoners’ perceptions of staff-prisoner relationships. The two findings that stand out in the present study are the importance prisoners attach to support from correctional officers and to fair and humane treatment by prison staff. Inmate surveys in the United States and England have also demonstrated that fair and decent treatment, and humanity are key relational and emotional aspects of prisoners’ carceral lives (Adams, 1992; Bottoms, 1999; Liebling, 2004). Thus, consistent with others, we find that the importance of staff-prisoner relationships, and more specifically of perceived staff support and a

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humane treatment, lies in both its effect on prisoners’ wellbeing and adjustment and on the maintenance of order in prisons (Adams, 1992; Bottoms, 1999). Of course, there are several limitations to our data. First, we interviewed a relatively small, convenience sample of (almost entirely) male prisoners. As such, we cannot generalize our findings to the experiences of all Dutch prisoners or all English prisoners. Nevertheless, our ability to conduct interviews in a wide range of institutions suggests that our results may extend beyond the particular prisoners and prison regimes that encompassed our research. Second, we interviewed prisoners who were held in prisons in a foreign country. It is possible that cultural differences regarding manners, hierarchy, and the level of formality in relationships, as well as characteristics of the prison setting in their country of origin have affected the prisoners’ perceptions. Third, we were not able to interview the prison staff. As a result, it could be argued that our findings lack contextualization based on, for example, institutional ratios of male-to-female correctional officers, and the diversity and training of staff. However, it is also possible that these factors would have little effect on our results because, as prior research has demonstrated, the work role of correctional staff plays a critical part in shaping their attitudes (e.g., Van Voorhis, Cullen, Link, & Wolfe, 1991); and, organizational and cultural factors play a more prominent role in determining these work roles and attitudes than dispositional characteristics (Hussemann & Page, 2011). These limitations notwithstanding, the present study has some important strengths as well. In this regard, we highlight our focus on the inmates’ prison experiences in two different countries in light of the recent developments in penal policies in these countries. This bottom-up approach, in which those who are actually experiencing penal policy inform us about day-to-day life inside prison, is rare. At present, we have little understanding of how prisoners’ lives have been affected by penal policies and practices. Although the present study fills this gap, it is just a first step. We need to know more about how prisoners interface with their keepers and what shapes their keepers’ orientations to them. This is critically important and relevant for the operation of prisons and, as we have seen, especially for prisons that are interested in altering their existing culture, their prison climate (Liebling, 2007b; Reisig & Mesko, 2009; Sparks & Bottoms, 1995). Acknowledgements This work was supported by The Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement; and, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Notes 1. More information on details of the Woolf report can be found at: (a) Woolf (1991). Prison Disturbances, April 1990: Report of an Inquiry. London: HMSO; (b) Player and Jenkins (1994). Prisons after Woolf: Reform through riot. London: Routlegde; (c) Prison Reform Trust (1991). The Woolf report. A summary of the main findings and recommendations of the inquiry into prison disturbances; (d) Liebling (2004). Prisons and their moral performance, Chapter 1. New York: Oxford University Press. 2. Space limitations preclude an extensive discussion of all these developments. Readers interested in examining these policy changes in more detail should see: HMPS Prison Service Order 4000, Incentives and Earned Privileges; HMPS Prison Service Order 7100, Key Performance Indicators, Key Performance Targets. 3. A standard regime in the Netherlands refers to a basic regime, in which prisoners’ material rights are taken into account (e.g. visitation hours, food, health care, time in the yard, exercise, association, and work). Only a selective and motivated group of prisoners becomes eligible for a more generous regime with additional activities, like education and behavioral interventions. 4. English prisons in which the interviews were conducted were: Bullwood Hall, Elmley, Highpoint, Holloway, Rochester, Verne , Wandsworth, Wormwood Scrubs. Dutch prisons in which the interviews were conducted were: Alphen a/d Rijn, Demersluis, Dordrecht, Esserheem, Haarlem, Havenstraat, Leeuwarden, Lelystad, Noordsingel, Norgerhaven, Sittard, Vught.

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5. Reasons for non-response of the two Dutch prisoners were: 1) one person did not speak English or Dutch, and 2) one person was upset when he met with us because he was expecting his lawyer. Reasons for non-response for the English prisoners in the Netherlands were less clear. Some did not give any reason; one was depressed and did not want to get out of bed; one did not want to change clothes for the interview; and one just wanted to do his time in prison and nothing else. An explanation for the higher refusal rate in the Netherlands might be that in some Dutch prisons staff insisted on explaining the prisoners about our study and asking them if they wanted to participate, instead of letting us do this initial step.

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