‘The Prison Don’t Talk to You about Getting Out of Prison’: On Why Prisons in

England and Wales Fail to Rehabilitate Prisoners

Professor Karen Bullock, Professor in Criminology

Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH

k.bullock@surrey.ac.uk

01483 686979

Karen Bullock is a professor in criminology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. Her research interests fall in the areas of policing and crime reduction

Ms Annie Bunce, Postgraduate Research Student

Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH

a.bunce@surrey.ac.uk

Annie Bunce is a doctoral student in criminology in the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey. Her research interests are within the areas of prison-based programming, motivation and desistance 

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‘The Prison Don’t Talk to You about Getting Out of Prison’: On Why Prisons in

England and Wales Fail to Rehabilitate Prisoners

Abstract

The position of rehabilitation in prisons in England and Wales has long been debated. Yet

studies which consider how prisoners experience rehabilitative practices and processes are

rare. Drawing on prisoners’ accounts, this article considers their perceptions and lived

experiences of the ways in which rehabilitation is influenced by the nature of organisational

support for rehabilitation; the characteristics of interventions implemented to support

rehabilitation; and the complexion of the prison climate. We find the perception of an

institutional failure to take responsibility for rehabilitation. Rehabilitative interventions –

notably Offender Management Programmes (OMPS) and work placements – are perceived to

be self-serving in rationale. They are experienced as ill-resourced, superficial in approach and

unlikely to engender change. The prison climate, characterised by a lack of interest amongst

correctional staff, lack of empathy and concern, and mixed - but often impersonal and

sometimes antagonistic - relationships between prison staff and prisoners, further disrupts any

ethos of rehabilitation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Key words

Prisons, rehabilitation, climate, Offender Management Programmes (OMPS), work

placements

Introduction

To punish or reform? This question regarding the purpose and function of the prison has long

been debated. Undoubtedly though, a place for rehabilitation can be found within

contemporary penal discourses in England and Wales (see for example MoJ, 2010; MoJ,

2013b). However, despite rhetoric which stresses the desirability of the prison as a place of

reform and rehabilitation, official reports also draw attention to how as an institution it is

failing to embed the cultures, relational processes and practices that have been found to

facilitate effective implementation of rehabilitative regimes (CJJI, Robinson; HMIPP, 2013;

2017). Many studies have examined the social institution of the prison documenting the

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forms, functions, power dynamics, mores and cultures, relational processes and factors that

influence order within prisoner societies. They have considered how prisoners adapt, the

impact of the prison experience on prisoners, examined the ways that the prison environment

exerts pressures or ‘pains’ on prisoners; how institutional identities take shape, and how

external forces affect the functioning and culture of institutions (for example, Clemmer,

1940; Sykes, 1958; Irwin and Cressey, 1962; Morris and Morris, 1963; King and Elliot, 1977;

Sparks, Bottoms and Hay , 1996; Liebling and Arnold, 2004; Crewe, 2009). Whilst

inferences about the prospect for prisoner rehabilitation can be drawn from these studies, they

do not deal explicitly with how prisoners experience rehabilitation in the prison. Indeed,

studies which consider directly how prisoners experience rehabilitation are rare (Blagden,

Winder and Hames, 2016).

This article draws on prisoner accounts to begin to fill this empirical gap. It considers

prisoners’ perceptions and lived experiences of the nature of organisational support for

rehabilitation, the characteristics of interventions provided to support rehabilitation (notably

Offender Management Programmes (OMPs) and work placements), and the complexion of

the prison climate. Taken together, we report a perception of an institutional failure to take

responsibility for prisoner rehabilitation, which is instead devolved to prisoners. Any

institutional provision for rehabilitation is generally perceived by prisoners to be self-serving

in terms of its rationale and experienced as ill-resourced, poorly conceived and superficial.

As such institutional provision was thought unlikely to contribute to positive behaviour

change. From the perspective of prisoners, the prison climate - characterised by a lack of

interest in rehabilitation amongst correctional staff, lack of empathy and concern, and mixed

but often impersonal and sometimes antagonistic relationships between prisoners and

correctional staff, disrupts any ethos of rehabilitation. We finish with reflecting on certain

theoretical and practical implications. Before developing our analysis, we situate the present

study within the evolving position of rehabilitation in penal policy and practice.

The Position of Rehabilitation in Penal Policy and Practice

Rehabilitation within Prison Policy

Buffeted by changes in social trends, competing political ideologies, and conflicting research

evidence about effectiveness, the position of rehabilitation within the prison has never been

stable (see for example Hollin, 2011; Cullen and Gendreau, 2001). The twentieth century

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was characterised by the rise of a ‘rehabilitative ideal’ focusing on social welfare and the

psychological treatment of prisoners based on sociological and psychological theories of

behaviour (Cullen and Gendreau, 2001; Hollin, 2011). Promoted by a deep-seated belief that

the state could, and should, intervene to improve the lives of citizens and belief in the power

of professionals to engender change, the mid-twentieth century was characterised by a model

of penal practice that promoted the diagnosis and treatment of offenders (Hollin and Bilby,

2007). This ‘individualised’, ‘treatment’ model came under attack in the latter part of the

twentieth century, when the ideal of rehabilitation was challenged politically, for being soft

on crime, and on the basis of efficacy, for being ineffective in reducing offending (Hollin and

Bilby, 2007; Cullen and Gendreau, 2001). Essentially, it has been argued that the twentieth

century saw support for the ‘rehabilitative ideal’ fall away, in favour of punitive discourses

and practices which stressed incapacitation and deterrence (Pratt 2007; Garland 2001; Feeley

and Simon, 1992).

However, whether the rehabilitative ideal truly collapsed is highly debatable. Governments

continued to pursue rehabilitative aims within penal policy. Indeed, the clear inclusion of

rehabilitative ideals within penal policy has led scholars to argue that contemporary penal

policy blends notions of punishment, control and rehabilitation (Robinson, 2008; Hutchinson,

2006). Certainly, the 1990s onwards saw somewhat of a revivification of the rehabilitation of

offenders. Notably, the international ‘what works’ movement began to influence penal policy

and practices in England and Wales. The widespread introduction of OMPs- which comprise

activities and interventions aimed at reducing the risk of a prisoner reoffending- in prisons in

England and Wales gained momentum due to a plethora of primary research studies and

research syntheses which demonstrated that they can be effective in reducing offending (for a

review see McGuire, 2002). Optimism was reinforced by the dissemination of research

evidence that suggests that identifying and targeting ‘criminogenic’ needs, needs which are

amenable to change, include a lack of education, lack of employment, drug and alcohol

misuse, impulsivity or low self-control and attitudes supportive of crime (see for example,

Harper and Chitty, 2005; MOJ, 2013a) - may be effective in reducing crime and in

developing holistic approaches to addressing reoffending (Petersilia, 2003; Taxman, 2004;

Maguire and Raynor, 2017). Further, wider factors - such as strong family and relationship

ties, sobriety, having stable and satisfying employment, being hopeful about the future and

being able to give something back to others/contributing towards society in some way - have

also been identified as supportive of the process of desisting from crime (MoJ, 2013a).

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In turn, rehabilitative interventions implemented in prison are more likely to be effective if

they are followed up after release, and if transition from custody to community is planned and

coordinated from an early stage in the sentence (Hudson et al, 2007). Albeit differently

named, designed and delivered by different organizations, and with a focus on achieving

different aims, there has been a long history of working with prisoners to address the practical

problems they face upon leaving custody (Maguire and Raynor, 2006). Whilst promoted by

British probation services since the 1960s, the delivery of practical assistance for adult

prisoners (except lifers) on release has been sporadic, not compulsory, generally offered by

charitable and voluntary agencies (latterly by the Probation Service), and of variable quality

(Maguire and Raynor, 1997; 2006). By the 1980s the concept of ‘throughcare’ commanded

widespread support, however, attempts to develop it through liaison and joint sentence

planning were frustrated by practical problems and changes in the prison system, and the

tradition of offering voluntary aftercare diminished (Maguire and Raynor, 1997:4).

Since the turn of the century, a case has been made for (re)orienting attention to these issues.

An official report which drew attention to the considerable body of evidence informing us of

factors that influence re-offending (SEU, 2002) marked an important moment in explaining

this change (Maguire and Raynor, 2006; Hudson et al, 2007). This report made a case for an

individualised and integrated approach to the delivery of OMPs, the establishment of

constructive work placements, and the delivery of support based on assessment of individual

need covering the entire sentence, in and out of custody, overseen by a case manager (SEU,

2002). Halliday (2001) and Carter (2003), both influential reviews of sentencing policy in

England and Wales, also called for prisons and the Probation Service to do more to manage

offenders throughout their sentence, and for practice to be grounded in what is known to be

effective in reducing offending. Carter (2003) led to structural reform and the establishment

of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS- now Her Majesty’s Probation and

Prison Service (HMPPS). The operational model underlying NOMS embodied the ideal of

integrated, whole-sentence offender management, driven by needs assessment and

individualised sentence planning, overseen by a dedicated case manager, designed to

motivate and ensure cooperation and compliance (NOMS, 2005:2). More recently, further

pushes to embed tailored rehabilitative work, with an emphasis on responding to the factors

that often lead offenders back to crime, has been evident in penal policy (MoJ, 2010; 2013b;

2016). ‘Through the gate’ resettlement services, aimed at smoothing the transition from

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prison to the community, have been extended (MoJ, 2013b). Promises have been made to

deliver full and purposeful prison regimes, to prepare prisoners for release, and for prisons

and the probation service to work together to support the transition through the prison gate

(MoJ, 2016:25). Strengths-based approaches, aimed at harnessing prisoners’ skills in order to

motivate them to behave pro-socially instead of resorting back to crime, have also been

promoted (MoJ, 2013b).

From Penal Policy to Rehabilitative Practice

At the policy level at least, the rehabilitative ideal never died. Indeed, some scholars argue

that contemporary penal policy blends notions of punishment, control and rehabilitation

(Robinson, 2008; Hutchinson, 2006). However, it is far less evident that this rehabilitative

ideal has been achieved in practice. Whilst, as noted, prison based OMPs can be effective,

there has also been disappointment about what they have achieved (Hollin et al., 2004,

Maguire et al., 2010). A range of implementation problems, such as resourcing and recruiting

suitable staff, have negatively affected what has been achieved (Lin, 2002; Harper and Chitty,

2005; Burdon et al., 2002; Maguire, 2004), and establishing and sustaining OMPs in closed

institutions is far from straightforward (Lin, 2002; Bullock, Bunce and Dodds, 2017). Prisons

have also struggled to proactively respond to needs assessments and embed throughcare

(CJJI, 2017; HMIPP, 2013; 2017; Maguire and Raynor, 2017).

The implementation of rehabilitative interventions in the prison is undermined by issues

related to the nature of the institution itself, and the prisoners and staff who reside within it

(Hamm and Schrink, 1989). In respect to the nature of the institution, overcrowding and

shortages of staff and resources are major issues (Hamm and Schrink, 1989; Lin, 2002;

Maguire and Raynor, 2017). At the time of writing, prisons in England and Wales have faced

severe fiscal cuts, leading to deteriorating conditions, and the side-lining of rehabilitation

(PAC, 2013; Garside and Ford, 2016). Prisons are bureaucratic, operate in line with written

policies, guidelines and legislation and within an organisational culture which emphasises

safety, security and conformity (Burdon et al, 2002; Lin, 2002). The ideal of rehabilitation

may also be undermined by the adversarial environment of the prison which makes it difficult

to build the trust and mutual respect necessary for effective teaching, supervising, or

counselling (Lin, 2002). It may also undermine prisoners’ willingness to volunteer for OMPs

and negatively influence whether any changes engendered by them are sustained (Burdon et

al, 2002; Ward et al, 2004).

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Also important are the views of the people who work in the prison. Recent research has

started to place the staff-prisoner relationship at the heart of our understanding of what

constitutes a ‘good prison’ (Maguire and Raynor, 2017) (see especially Liebling and Arnold,

2004). Through their daily interaction with prisoners, prison staff can either undermine or

support prisoner attitudes towards, and engagement with, rehabilitation (Hamm and Schrink,

1989; Kjelsberg, Hilding-Skoglund and Rustad, 2007; Maguire and Raynor, 2017; Blagden

et al, 2016). Positive attitudes and beliefs about change held by prison staff and prisoners are

vital for fostering effective offender rehabilitation and promoting change in offending

behaviour (Blagden et al, 2016). More generally, positive relations between prisoners and

prison staff function to signify a view of prisoners as capable of positive change, whereas

negative attitudes do the opposite (Kjelsberg, Hilding-Skoglund and Rustad, 2007). Surveys

have shown that prison staff support the principle of prisoner rehabilitation (Cullen et al,

1989; 1993). However, others have drawn attention to how prison staff can be cynical and

pessimistic about the prospect of offender reform (Hamm and Schrink, 1989; Lin, 2002;

Clarke, Simmonds and Wydall , 2004) and hold more or less positive views about the role of

OMPs in prison (Clarke, Simmonds and Wydall , 2004; Liebling, Arnold and Straub, 2011).

At the same time, staff can become very attached to the routines with which they are familiar,

and reluctant to alter their practices, meaning novel rehabilitative practices may not be

prioritised (Lin, 2002; Craig, 2004).

Methodology

This article is based on twenty-seven in-depth accounts of how rehabilitative processes and

practices are experienced by prisoners. Interviews were conducted in four English prisons

throughout 2016 and all participants were participating in a prison based programme at the

time of the interview. Potential participants were informed about the research by paid staff

members, given a leaflet outlining the main points of the study, a detailed information sheet,

and a chance to ask questions before deciding whether or not they would like to participate .

Where prisoners volunteered to take part in the research, programme staff liaised with the

research team to arrange convenient dates and times for interviews. Steps were taken to

ensure that participants provided informed consent, data were protected and confidentiality

was upheld. The study was reviewed and received a favorable ethical opinion from the

University of Surrey Ethics Committee. The semi-structured interview covered areas such as

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prisoner experiences of adjusting to imprisonment, the prison regime, relationships with other

prisoners, prison staff and programme staff, the various forms of rehabilitation and/or work

undertaken in prison and perceptions of the impact that it had on them, and the effect of the

wider prison experience on their rehabilitation. The data were analysed thematically around

these topics. The final sample consisted of seven female prisoners and twenty male prisoners.

Ten were aged 18-30 (37%); fourteen were aged 31-50 (52%); one was aged 50+, and the age

of two participants were unknown. In terms of ethnicity, seven were white (26%); seventeen

were black (67%); two were Asian (7%), and one was mixed. Eighteen were serving

sentences of 5 years or longer (67%) - twelve of whom were on life sentences (44% of the

total sample) - and nine were serving sentences of under 5 years (33%). Sentences ranged

from one year and nine months at the shortest, to a life sentence with a twenty-two year tariff

at the longest. Seventeen were in prison for a violent crime (63%); six for acquisitive crime

(22%), and four for drug-related offences (15%). Fourteen (52%) had previously served a

prison sentence for a different crime. The vast majority of participants had experience of

OMPs, most commonly cognitive-behavioural and substance programmes, and therapy.

Findings

On the Nature of Organisational Support for Rehabilitation

Taken together, prisoners believed that the institution took little responsibility for

rehabilitation. Instead, responsibility was devolved to the individual to proactively pursue any

rehabilitative opportunities (see also Crewe, 2011; HMIPP, 2013). For one prisoner: ‘there is

opportunities for rehabilitation but I think the onus is on you as an individual just to do your

sentence in a certain way’ [3]. And for another:

‘they’re not going to come to you and say, “You need to do this, you need to do that

to rehabilitate yourself.” They’re just going to, they’re not going to chase you, you

have to chase them. It’s supposed to be the other way around but it’s really not which

is not a good thing’ [14].

Some prisoners told us how they struggled to get the support that they thought they needed to

progress through their sentence. When asked what support he had had from the prison for

release, one participant, who had a week left to serve of his sentence, noted: ‘None at all

actually, I never thought of it’ [6]. This lack of provision led prisoners to believe that any

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official statements of support for prisoner rehabilitation were somewhat self-serving. For one

prisoner: ‘the prison don’t really do it for you, you know, they say they do and then they just

take credit for what you’ve done’ [13]. There were certainly examples of prisoners taking on

this burden. However, attempts made by ‘empowered’ prisoners to take responsibility for

rehabilitation was generally experienced as ‘a constant uphill battle’ [17] in which prisoners

had to fight to get access to the support, resources and interventions that they needed to

progress through their sentence.

On the Characteristics of Interventions to Support Rehabilitation

A lack of support

Limited practical support was available for those prisoners who were planning for release

(see also CJJI, 2017; HMIPP, 2013; 2017). For one participant ‘as far as I can remember

there’s only a few things, a few programmes around’ [1]. In addition, the quality of any

available support was often characterised as poor. One participant, who recounted

researching future employment possibilities, described how:

you can’t sit at a computer and just start doing your own research which is so

frustrating […] you’ve got to ask people to do everything for you […] you get like

research that’s frankly a lower quality than you would have gathered yourself [3].

Our participants were somewhat resigned to the situation. For one ‘I’m just of the belief that

you do it yourself really and there’s only so much the prison can do’ [1]. However, prisoners

did not generally consider it to be desirable:

The prison still does not do anything to put you in a position where you should be,

especially if you’ve done such a long time […] They come out and they’re in a worse

position than they were when they come in. They haven’t got their house no more.

They haven’t got a job and they’re out there thinking, “How am I going to survive?

[25].

In cases where provision was available, it was generally experienced as self-serving (on the

part of both prisoners and the prisons), lacking in depth and value, and unlikely to motivate

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change. We illustrate with examples of OMPs and work placements, which are mainstays of

current correctional practice.

Offender management programmes (OMPs)

Attendance on mandatory OMPs was often thought to be self-serving on the prisoners’ part

because they have to attend in order to meet sentence plans and progress through the system

(see also Lin, 2002; Clarke, Simmonds and Wydall , 2004; Schinkel, 2015). For one: ‘it’s

fake in here, it’s all fake, the courses ain’t real because people are just doing it because you

have to do it, that’s it, and not because they want to, it’s just because you have to do it’ [10].

For this prisoner:

I would say 90% of the people that are on those courses are there to tick boxes, 90%.

That’s always, always going to be the case, always going to be the case because

you’re forced … it’s forced upon you as a part of a regime [11].

The result being that ‘you get a lot of people doing things that they don’t want to do’ [10].

Unmotivated participants were thought unlikely to get much from them (see also Clarke,

Simmonds and Wydall, 2004). For one prisoner:

I think it’s this course, well it’s not even a course, like, for me, when you come to

prison you have to do all different courses to lower your risk but you’re doing these

courses but it’s not really having no effect because you’re kind of forced to do it

[2].

Additionally, merely ‘playing the game’ generated cynicism: ‘there’s no value and when

you’re going to these drugs courses a lot of guys are still using drugs but they’ve got to go on

them otherwise they haven’t participated or they haven’t addressed their issues’ [10].

Prisoners certainly described positive experiences whilst participating on certain prison

programmes. Notably those which promote democratic participation, foster the development

of positive relationships, encourage taking personal responsibility, and focus on personal

identity and self-narratives. Therapeutic Communities (or TCs as they are commonly known)

are a good case in point. Mandatory OMPs however, were generally characterised by

prisoners as lacking in depth and breadth – being too short in length, dealing with matters in

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insufficient detail, and lacking in follow-up – and so unlikely to engender real change (see

also Clarke, Simmonds and Wydall , 2004; HMIPP, 2017; Schinkel, 2015). As one prisoner

put it ‘you need to give prisoners a lot more meat on the bone in order for them to kind of

really change their thinking’ [11]. They were also viewed as repetitive for prisoners who

had done programmes before: “I think once you’ve done one kind of cognitive programme in

prison I think you’ve done them all…yes I’ve learnt stuff from them, I wouldn’t say it’s stuff

that I didn’t know.” [11]. Delivered in groups and highly structured, prisoners often told us

the programmes were insufficiently standardised and unlikely to deal with underlying

problems: ‘Yes, so like I just didn’t find it useful for someone in my situation that had a lot of

issues going on’ [3]. The quality was also queried by participants: ‘Yes, I mean bearing in

mind that people get paid for offering, there’s this one course they rolled out recently and it’s

just, it was so terrible, so poorly put together’ [3]. Perhaps unsurprisingly, prisoners generally

did not report gaining a lot from such programmes :

in terms of what’s changed me as a person, I don’t think they changed me as a person

[…] I don’t think they’re practical, because some of them are just stupid, but I think

that’s probably why they’ve probably changed them or got rid of them over the years

[25].

Taken together this led prisoners to believe that the prison was not serious about

rehabilitation: ‘It makes you question how seriously they’re taking efforts to rehabilitate and

that kind of thing’ [3]. Indeed, the way that they were provided contributed to the perception

of prisoners that OMPs were self-serving on the part of the prison. That is, aimed at meeting

government imposed targets, and so ticking-boxes, or creating the illusion of providing

rehabilitation without actually addressing the real problems that prisoners face (see also Lin,

2002; Clarke, Simmonds and Wydall, 2004). As one prisoner explained: ‘They give you the

course and they cram so much into a short space of time and then say, “Right that’s it, you’ve

done it now.” So basically it’s a boxed ticked’ [2]. And for another ‘in order for the regime

to be able to say that they quantify … that you know, they’ve rehabilitated you, yeah. But the

fact is, I don’t believe it works, personally’ [11]. Participants’ perception that both the prison

as an institution, and the majority of its inhabitants, had no genuine desire to pursue

rehabilitation led to feelings of disillusionment around the concept, and the possibility of

achieving any meaningful change in such an environment: ‘…they say rehabilitation right but

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then I feel like what are they really doing…I don’t even know what that word means

anymore’ [23].

Work placements

Work for prisoners, aiming to develop transferable skills and provide real experiences of

working life, has been seen as an important aspect of rehabilitation (King and McDermott,

1995; Lin, 2002; Liebling and Arnold, 2004; MoJ, 2016). Boredom is a major concern

regarding prisoners, who are often mentally and emotionally ill-prepared for the reality of

confinement (Lin, 2002), and participation in a regular activity is related to improvements in

prisoners’ self-perception of their quality of life (Liebling and Arnold, 2004). However, we

heard that work opportunities within the prison are often limited, and the nature of the work

is often experienced as repetitive and mundane, which does little to develop transferable

skills and improve future opportunities (see also King and McDermott, 1995; Lin, 2002;

Liebling and Arnold, 2004). For one prisoner:

I would suggest that from the outside it looks like a workers prison but it’s not really a

workers prison, it’s just a prison where they try to say that you have meaningful

activity […] but a lot of the jobs, if you go into the workshops, there’s people just

sitting there, they’re not working […] Them jobs there, you’re just sitting there and

they don’t really give you hope for outside because you think “If this is work, I don’t

really want to work”. [16]

And for another: ‘I mean, this is a working prison, they’ve got people in the workshops

folding binders, making them, right, that’s not a trade [2]. In the short term, such exposure to

mundane tasks can be frustrating: ‘I was unlucky and I went into the kitchens […] it was

really horrible and I thought that’s not something I wanted to do anyway’ and ‘so there are

things you can do but if you’re not going to be satisfied doing what you’re doing, what’s the

point in doing it?’ [26]. Frustration was also evident from prisoners’ perception that much of

the busy work undertaken in prison under the rubric of rehabilitation was merely to benefit

the institution economically, with no real regard for prisoners’ rehabilitation (see also Craig,

2004). For this prisoner:

you can make money for the prison basically in every direction you’re looking, you

can mop floors or just mundane things that just drive me mental. If I’m doing

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something that hasn’t got a positive outcome for myself… that’s not going to do

anything for me sort of tomorrow, the next day and the day after that I find it difficult

to even do it [19].

On the Complexion of the Prison Climate

Staff interest in rehabilitation

Prisoner rehabilitation was not generally seen to be a key concern of correctional staff:

‘listen, officers, day to day couldn’t give a monkeys about your rehabilitation to be honest’

[19]. Rather, the wing staff were concerned with maintaining their safety and that of

prisoners, and simply getting through the day with minimal fuss (see also Hamm and Schrink,

1989; Kjelsberg, Hilding-Skoglund and Rustad , 2007; Lin, 2002): ‘then there’s some that,

I’m here to get my paycheque, do my job and go’ [9]. From the perspectives of prisoners

even where officers come with good intentions, cynicism can wear them down over time and

initial support for rehabilitation amongst prison officers may become undermined by the

realities of delivering rehabilitative interventions in unfavourable conditions (see also Lin,

2002; Warr, 2012). For this prisoner:

I think some people come with passion and enthusiasm to make a difference, but then

sometimes the system just overrides them and the system just overwhelms them and

then they fall into the system’s way of doing things, you know, because eventually if

you keep butting against the wall you just think look, what’s the point [11].

Staff – prisoner interaction

A climate that fosters rehabilitation requires the establishment of prisoner-staff relationships

founded on empathy and compassion, trust, and mutual respect (Hamm and Schrink, 1989;

Rowe and Soppitt, 2014, Clarke, Simmonds and Wydall , 2004). Participants drew attention

to how day-to-day relationships between prisoners and correctional staff were mixed, and not

always oppositional: ‘I think it’s hit and miss, some officers are really nice, some officers

aren’t’ [7]. However, empathy or compassion from the correctional staff was generally

thought to be absent: ‘there’s no empathy, there’s no nothing’ [20]. Relationships were

described by participants as impersonal (see also MoJ, 2016; Kjelsberg, Hilding-Skoglund

and Rustad , 2007; Crewe, 2009; 2011; Warr, 2012). For one:

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They’re not really interested in your life, do you know what I mean? …. They just

see you as a name and number …. they might be polite to you and they’re okay with

you but they wouldn’t actually stop and say, “Do you know what, how’s your day

been?” [15].

Moreover sometimes relationships were described as antagonistic (see also MoJ, 2016;

Kjelsberg, Hilding-Skogland and Rustad, 2007; Crewe, 2009; 2011; Warr, 2012). From the

perspectives of some prisoners, officers were ‘just arseholes’ [who] ‘still have that mind

frame of prisoners are bad’ [13] and ‘they figure take this one brush, all of them are convicts,

all of them are no good, all of them’ [9] (see also Lin, 2002). For ‘some of the officers around

the jail they look at you like they’re toe rags […] you know, they just hate you’ [20]. As

another prisoner comments :

Behind closed doors you’re always constantly with the staff and little things that they,

they’re antagonising you and they don’t give you things that usually you’re entitled to

[…] and these kind of things wind you up and so you kind of feel pressure [17].

Indeed, stories of imprisonment were woven with examples of petty injustices – not being

given things to which they were entitled, being ignored, being made to wait, being given the

brush off – which, as the quote above illustrates, unsurprisingly generates frustration amongst

prisoners. This did little to moderate feelings of worthlessness, and undermined self-esteem.

As one participant put it: ‘they don’t take it as their priority when actually looking after you

is their priority’ [9]. For another:

Some officers are good, they genuinely care and then you have some in here it’s just

it’s like they’re trying to punish you when you’re already on a punishment for the

crime that you already done and it’s like are you trying to treat me bad and I ain’t

even done nothing [22].

All of this in turn has an impact on prisoners’ perspectives of the rehabilitative process: ‘once

you keep going and going and then once you go then all the good work that you’ve done over

the year is now, it’s on the backburner because of just one incident and that’s how it is at

times’ [17]. In sum it is challenging, from both sides, to make the relationships work and

generate an atmosphere in which rehabilitation might be expected to flourish:

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I’ve learnt that there’s bad apples in every tree so you’ve kind of got to ignore it but I

think it’s our duty as well as theirs to try and make things work between officers and

inmates, you know, so it’s quite challenging for both sides [2].

Discussion and Conclusion

We started this article with an analysis of the prison as an undeniably present, but much

contested, place for rehabilitation. Pessimism has historically affected this arena but more

recently, largely as a result of the influential ‘what works’ movement, there has been much

more optimism that prisoners can be rehabilitated. As we have seen, prison policy in England

and Wales has been punctuated with statements that acknowledge the need to provide

constructive work for prisoners, to develop individualised and integrated approaches to

OMPs, to facilitate the delivery of ‘strengths based’ approaches encouraging collaborative

work with prisoners, and the need for planned and well-supported preparation for release,

together with through the gate support (Halliday, 2001; SEU, 2002; Carter, 2003; NOMS,

2005; MoJ, 2013b; MoJ, 2016). This article has examined how prisoners experience

rehabilitative processes and practices. Our findings draw attention to how, from the

perspective of prisoners, these principles are not reflected in practice. We finish with some

observations for theory and for practice.

In terms of institutional support for rehabilitation, we report the perception of an institutional

failure to take responsibility for rehabilitation. Instead, this responsibility was devolved to

prisoners themselves (see also Crewe, 2011; CJJI, 2017). Sometimes this devolution, seen as

enabling prisoners to take control of their own rehabilitation, has been mooted as desirable

with policy discourses, in order to ‘empower’ them to take responsibility for their own

rehabilitation (MoJ, 2013; HMIPP, 2013). Such a notion of taking responsibility resonates

with core features of desistance theory and research, which stresses a role of offenders’

agency in the process of reform, and highlights the need to promote self-reliance and personal

capacity in order to make the choices needed to engender change (see for example Maruna

2001; Farrall and Calverley 2006; Farrall et al. 2014). But it parallels wider modes of neo-

liberal governance which seek to ‘govern at a distance’ and shift responsibility for reform

from state to offenders (Garland, 1997; Hannah-Moffat, 2000). Thus, rather than seen as

‘objectified’ clients on to whom therapeutic interventions are imposed, prisoners are

15

constructed as entrepreneurs of their own personal development and rehabilitation (Garland,

1997:191). Under such rendering, prisoners are governed and learn to govern themselves, in

ways that emphasise agency and autonomy (Garland, 1997). In turn, constructed as self-

motivated and rational actors, prisoners – rather than wider structures, policies and

relationships – can be blamed in the event of failure. The distinction between ‘empowerment’

and ‘responsibilisation’ is perhaps inconsequential, because prison claims near total power

over its subjects, and imprisonment induces dependency (Sykes, 1958; Sparks, Bottoms and

Hay, 1996). Indeed, any logic of practice within penal discourses that seek to promote

prisoner ownership, participation and choice in respect to their own rehabilitation is

inevitably problematic. Whilst imprisonment generally undermines autonomy, there are

examples of initiatives which encourage self-sufficiency and personal responsibility by

allowing prisoners to live as autonomously as is possible within the constraints of their

environment (see for example Jacobson and Fair, 2017). Generally though, prisoners have no

choice but to depend on a regime which inevitably puts them in a marginalised position when

it comes to negotiating their own rehabilitation and, caught in webs of bureaucracy and

inefficiency, any prisoners who wish to take control of their own rehabilitation face numerous

practical barriers.

In relation to the characteristics of interventions to support rehabilitation we find that

mandatory OMPs were perceived to be superficial (see also HMIPP, 2013; 2017; Schinkel

2015), and any potential efficacy may be eroded by self-serving behaviour on the part of

prisoners (see also Clarke, Simmonds and Wydall, 2004; Schinkel, 2015). Thus prisoners

who might formally comply with OMP requirements to satisfy their personal interests in the

short term, are unlikely to comply substantively in the long term, through ‘buying in’ to the

aims of the programme and seeking to genuinely alter their attitudes and behaviour

(Robinson and McNeill, 2008). Prisoners are more likely to engage with rehabilitative efforts

which are perceived to be legitimate, which includes the maintenance of adequate living

conditions, having opportunities to undertake meaningful rather than superficial work, having

some choice about how to utilise rehabilitative opportunities, and positive, collaborative

relationships (Robinson and McNeill, 2008). When experienced as non-coercive and

perceived of as self-motivated, participation in programmes can aid any intrinsic desire to

change (Edgar, Jacobson and Biggar, 2011). Addressing both prisoners’ short-term

institutional, and longer-term rehabilitative goals may be the most effective way to motivate

active participation in prison-based programmes, and increase the likelihood that

16

participation facilitates long-term behaviour change (Lin, 2002). That rehabilitative aims are

internally valued by participants is an important consideration for prison-based programmes,

because offenders are more likely to persist with pro-social behaviours post-release if they

are intrinsically motivated to do so (Clarke, Simmonds and Wydall, 2004). Moving beyond

OMPs, work placements, in principle a mechanism through which to provide prisoners with

meaningful work to help break the cycle of offending (MoJ, 2016:32), were merely perceived

to be mundane, doing little to develop transferable skills and improve future opportunities

(see also King and McDermott, 1995; Lin, 2002; Liebling and Arnold, 2004). Given the

finding that employment upon release has been associated with desistance from crime, and

that the stability and quality of this employment plays an important role in this relationship, it

is important that prisons offer purposeful work that can be applied post-release throughout

their sentence (Laub and Sampson, 1993; MoJ, 2010). Prisoners also need opportunities to

develop social capital, apply skills, and practice any newly emerging pro-social roles

(opportunities for which are generally few and far between in prison) (McNeill et al., 2012).

In respect of the complexion of the prison climate, although there was some variety of

experiences prisoners’ tended to report a perception that correction staff had limited interest

in rehabilitation and that relationships between officers and prisoners could be impersonal,

lacking in empathy and compassion, and antagonistic. The importance of prisoner-staff

relationships has long been acknowledged, and links to prisoners’ perceptions of their

treatment and contributes to security, order and the legitimacy of the penal institution (Sykes,

1958; Morris and Morris, 1963; Sparks, Bottoms and Hay, 1996; Liebling and Arnold, 2004;

Crewe, 2011). Though it should be stressed relationships are not always negative and there

can be variation across and within prisons, it is clear that developing and sustaining positive

relationships in prison can be challenging (see also Crewe, 2011; Warr, 2012; Tait, 2012). It

is difficult to give and receive care in coercive regimes where relationships are unbalanced,

where there is wariness and lack of trust, and where the need to protect security may lead to

caution and detachment (Sykes, 1958; Crewe, 2011; Warr, 2012; Tait, 2012). Indeed, it is

through their daily interaction with prisoners that prison staff can either undermine or support

prisoner attitudes towards, and engagement with, rehabilitation (Hamm and Schrink, 1989;

Kjelsberg, Hilding-Skoglund and Rustad, 2007; Crewe, 2011; Maguire and Raynor, 2017;

Blagden et al, 2016). Prison staff can positively shape prisoners’ experience if they are seen

to assert their power legitimately, by treating them as moral subjects and agents and

extending care, respect and professionalism (Liebling, 2011). A balance between the care

17

and respect and authority exercised by prison staff has been found to influence prisoners’

perceptions of legitimacy and outcomes (Crewe, 2011; Crewe, Liebling and Hulley, 2011).

And it may be that through supporting and promoting rehabilitation, encouraging prisoners

to take up opportunities, acting as role models, and treating prisoners with respect and

fairness- prison staff can foster hope and motivation amongst prisoners and so promote

desistance (Burnett and McNeill, 2005). Whilst staff directly involved in programme

delivery are usually very aware of the importance of their role- termed ‘therapeutic alliance’

(Polaschek and Ross, 2010; Kozar and Day; 2012), officers and other prison staff are often

more indifferent. For interventions to succeed, it is paramount that they are enthusiastically

welcomed by the whole prison environment (Liebling, Arnold and Straub, 2011). If

prisoners perceive that staff prison-wide are genuinely invested in their rehabilitation and

have their interests at heart, the risk that positive progress made on programmes will be

reversed by the antipathetic prison environment is reduced.

In sum, whilst penal policy is optimistic, a body of research is drawing attention to the

challenges faced by those aim to deliver the ideal of rehabilitative prisons in practice. For the

implementation and impact of any rehabilitative interventions cannot be separated from the

wider prison environment in which they operate. And the institution of the prison does little

to promote a positive climate within which to motivate prisoners to reconsider their attitudes

towards crime, and make genuine plans to change their lifestyle (Maguire and Raynor, 2017).

Whilst building such a climate will be essential for any rehabilitation of prisoners (see also,

Petersilia, 2003; Taxman, 2004; Maguire and Raynor, 2017; Blagden et al, 2016), the current

realities of institutional life makes doing so a daunting prospect.

18

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