Disrupting prison managerialism: Managing prisons in an age of pandemic

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic swept across the world in 2020, having widespread and dramatic impacts on social life. Prisons in England and Wales implemented a lock down regime for public health purposes that suppressed the spread of coronavirus but continues to have an impact on the quality of life for prisoners. This article is based on a small-scale ethnographic study of prison managers in an English prison. This builds upon studies that have documented the experiences of prison managers in England during 21^st century. These studies have illustrated that prior to the pandemic, prison management was dominated by the neoliberal practices of managerialism, including an architecture of surveillance through targets, audits and inspections and the nurturing of a more compliant professional culture. The pandemic disrupted managerialism and initially saw the total dismantling of the system of monitoring and an altered relationship between the central and local levels of the organisation. Managers had to operate with greater agency and developed a stronger sense of place, focussing on the internal and local community. As the threat from the pandemic receded, there was a process of ‘managerial clawback’ with the re-establishing of the managerial architecture and a general acceptance of managerialism as a ‘return to normality’ in prisons. Yet this process was incomplete as the pandemic left complex problems including the best way to operate prison regimes that balanced ongoing health risks, maintaining order and offering constructive activity. These complex problems could not be resolved through centralised managerialism and instead required localised initiative. The pandemic had disrupted managerialism and although the architecture had largely been re-established intact, space had been created for greater autonomy in responding to the legacy. The emerging ‘new normal’ is therefore a mixed managerial economy in prison that navigates a path between managerial control and local autonomy.

Keywords

Prisons prison management managerialism prison managers pandemic pandemic recovery

‘I remember the drive was “eerie” … because there was very little traffic. I remember … thinking “what on earth is going on”? Also thinking … that I was going to a place of safety because … we are closed, we are contained, and away from the rest of the community. There was also that moment when the Prime Minister said there would be a list of key workers and that wasn’t published immediately, so there was that question, as prison service leaders are we key workers? … We just didn’t know. It was strange because of the lack of people around as everyone had stayed at home’. (Prison operational manager describing the first full day of national lockdown on 24th March 2020.)

Following its emergence in China, the coronavirus pandemic spread globally, sparking an unprecedented public health response. In the UK, the first national lockdown was implemented on 23 March 2020 and for the next two years, a range of legally enforced public health measures were enacted and a vaccine programme developed to bring the virus under control. During the first two years, over 185,000 people in the UK died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus (HM Government, 2022). The pandemic was not solely a public health issue, but had widespread social impacts including transformations in the economy and labour market; exacerbating social inequalities; and increasing the importance of local community in managing the immediate effects and response (British Academy, 2021).

In prisons across the globe, the impact of the pandemic has been severe, prolonged and is continuing (Heard, 2021). Initial estimates suggested that up to 2700 people may die in prisons in England and Wales if action was not taken (O’Moore and Bennett, 2021). In response, a range of strict public health measures were introduced in March 2020, including social distancing through increased time in cell with unlock in small groups for specific activities such as outdoor exercise, showers and phonecalls, and; population cohorting through temporary separation of newly arrived prisoners, those who were symptomatic, and those who needed to be shielded due to health vulnerabilities (House of Commons Justice Committee, 2020). These measures suppressed infections and deaths, such that two and a half years later, 158 prisoners had died due to suspected or confirmed COVID-19 (HMPPS, 2022a). The independent Inspectorate of prisons concluded that although the measures put in place reduced fatalities, this ‘has been achieved at significant cost to the welfare and progression of prisoners’ (HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, 2021: 7). Many prisoners were left feeling ‘helpless and hopeless, stuck in limbo’, with ‘a crushing sense of boredom’ and falling into ‘a deep malaise’ (Taylor and Bennett, 2022: 72).

Only slowly, and in a controlled manner did prisons start to increase regime activities. This was a fitful process due to a further national lockdown in the winter of 2020–21, restrictions short of a lockdown in the winter of 2021–2, and localised outbreaks requiring local control measures. Until May 2022, the English and Welsh prison system remained operating within the ‘National Framework for Prison Regimes and Services’ (HMPPS, 2020), a medium-term approach to ensuring central oversight of prison regimes with the aim of mitigating the risk from coronavirus.

This article draws upon research into the experiences of prison managers during the coronavirus pandemic, building upon ethnographic studies undertaken during the last 15 years, which trace the developments in prison management in England. The aim of the study is to consider how the pandemic has altered the nature of prison management and the implications for the future. The article argues that the pandemic disrupted managerialism and initially saw the total dismantling of the system of targets, audits and monitoring. The relationship between the central and local levels of the organisation altered and local managers had to operate with greater agency, developing a stronger sense of place, focussing on the internal and local community. As the threat from the pandemic receded, there was a process of ‘managerial clawback’ with the re-establishing of the managerial architecture and a general acceptance of managerialism as a return to normality in prisons. The article explores whether the pandemic has altered prison management, exposing the limitations of managerialism and highlighting the potential of local managers to exercise enhanced agency.

Prison managerialism and the age of pandemic

The 1980s saw dramatic changes in western societies as the post-War welfare society was eroded and displaced by the emergence of neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism describes a return to laissez-faire economics including facilitating the mechanisms of production and exchange, enabling mass consumption, expanding the reach and control of commercial organisations, and legitimising inequalities in wealth. This is not solely an issue of economics but has complex social, political, legal and cultural dimensions that have permeated life in the contemporary Western world (Bell, 2011). In organisations, it has been observed that a dominant form of management has evolved, which includes a movement towards larger organisations with hierarchical structures that attempt to monitor and control the behaviour of employees through target setting and the use of information technology (Parker, 2002). Organisations have also experienced greater use of Human Resource Management techniques such as recruitment, reward, appraisal, development, communication and consultation in order to shape how employees think about their work, enlisting them as corporate citizens, a process described by Rose (1999) as ‘governing the soul’. Together, these trends, combining tighter, centralised structures and attempts to re-engineer individual identity, are the core of ‘managerialism’.

These global changes have influenced prison management. In particular, the late 1990s and early 2000s saw a proliferation of technologies of monitoring including the introduction of performance targets, audits, and ratings systems. Such changes are not merely technical, but also have significant cultural impact in altering professional identities. Cheliotis (2006) analysed the processes that reshaped how prison managers think and act, nurturing more compliant behaviours. First, there was an increasingly hierarchical division of labour so that managers focused on service delivery rather than engaging in wider cultural, moral or strategic development. Second, there was intensive competition, fuelled by privatisation and performance targets. Third was the emergence of a generation of blasé professionals who were less concerned about moral dimensions but saw their work as a general management role. Similarly, Liebling (2011) described that there had been a shift from a welfare orientation amongst prison managers to greater ‘economic rationality’. Together, these works suggest that there has been both a structural change and a shift in professional culture and identity. It has been argued that what has emerged is a form of managerialism that: over-uses targets, audits and other measures so leaving little space for individuality, creativity and autonomy; over-emphasises compliance with measures for their own sake without meaningful connection with the social context, and; nurtures compliant behaviour and uniformity amongst prison managers with the aim of producing identikit corporate citizens (Bennett, 2020).

In a series of studies conducted in English prisons since 2007, Bennett has explored the development and practices of managerialism. The first study was a significant ethnographic study of managers in two medium security prisons between 2007 and 2008 (Bennett, 2015a). This revealed that managerial practices had come to dominate the everyday work of prison managers, with targets and audits often being described as ‘our core business’. Over time, prison managers moved from resisting managerial practices in the mid-1990s, to accepting and by 2007, embracing them. Many prison managers felt empowered by using monitoring and scrutiny. They also placed significant emphasis upon achieving or complying with targets, sometimes even beyond the limits of their resources and well-being. This study revealed that managerialism had become a dominant set of practices and had been assimilated into the professional habitus of prison managers. That is not to say that the prison context had evaporated from prison management. Indeed, traditional prison culture remained significant, particularly characterised by masculinity, a hierarchical relationship with prisoners and an insular occupational culture. The practices of managerialism and traditional culture often intersected and fused giving a localised texture to ‘prison managerialism’ (Bennett, 2015a).

In a follow-up study, Bennett returned to one of the original research sites in 2014 and 2015, to explore the effects of the austerity policies being implemented following the financial crisis of 2007–08, and subsequent recession (Bennett, 2015b). These policies aimed to control and reduce national debts, in part through increased taxation, but more significantly through reductions in public spending (Blyth, 2013). For prisons, the impact of austerity was felt particularly following the election of the Coalition Government in 2010, when the National Offender Management Service was required to deliver savings of £900million, or 24%, between 2011 and 2015 (NOMS, 2014). During this age of austerity, managers shifted their focus from targets and audits to change management as they implemented reforms. Although the specific form altered, this approach remained managerial in nature through the close monitoring and hierarchical control. Although prison managers complied with the changes, they did not embrace them and indeed often felt significant anxiety about the consequences for those who lived and worked in prisons as well as the quality of the service they could provide. These concerns were compounded by the deterioration in prison conditions, increase in violence and drug misuse that came in the wake of the austerity reforms (HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales, 2019). Prison managers experienced estrangement from the work they were being directed to undertake, and a weakening commitment to managerialism (Bennett, 2015b).

A third study examined the operation of a ‘reform prison’ in 2017 (Bennett, 2019), one of four established by then Justice Secretary, Michael Gove. Like academy schools, these reform prisons would be empowered to have ‘greater freedom’ with ‘operational autonomy and genuine independence’ (Gove, 2015). The attempt to structurally reform managerialism through greater local flexibility, ultimately foundered. In part because subsequent Justice Secretaries constrained the ambitions of the programme, with centralised control being gradually reasserted and operating freedoms curtailed. There was also resistance from within, as the reforms were introduced in a period of significant operational challenge for prisons facing reduced resources, rising levels of violence and substance misuse (HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales, 2019). In an environment of operational uncertainty, managerial control and measurement offered reassurance, providing a sense, even if illusory, of certainty and order. This process of ‘managerial clawback’ revealed the resilience of managerialism as an idea and set of practices (Bennett, 2019).

These three studies set the context for the working lives of prison managers leading up to the pandemic. This was an era in which managerialism was dominant and exerted a tight hold on the organisation and the occupational culture and identity of prison managers. The age of austerity has seen some weakening of commitment, and the reform prison programme indicated that alternative approaches may be possible. Managerialism had been challenged and contested, but it was persistent, durable and embedded in the practices, culture and habitus of prison managers.

Methodology

The fieldwork was conducted between October and December 2021 in a medium security prison, which had previously been the site at which research had been conducted in 2007–8, and in 2014–15 (Bennett, 2015a, 2015b). It was a small-scale ethnographic study, involving ten days of observations and interviews with twenty managers. These managers included senior operational managers (governor, deputy governor and heads of functions), uniformed managers (custodial and supervisory managers) and people involved in managing important non-operational business functions such as prisoner activities and corporate finance, HR and performance monitoring. A wide range of managers were selected as the intention was to explore the broader management culture. The interviews were semi-structured, using an interview schedule drawing upon literature around managerialism in prisons, and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on work and society. The interviews generally lasted around 45 minutes to an hour. Observations included management meetings, and the daily operation of the prison including residential and activity areas for prisoners. The research was approved through the HM Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS) process, including an assessment of the public health risks to the researcher and participants. The fieldwork was conducted in an environment where the pandemic was an ongoing lived reality. Restrictions continued including regular testing, the wearing of face coverings and hand washing on entry. The prison was managing an outbreak on one wing and there was growing national concern about the risk from the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. Activities within the prison, particularly prisoner activities, were more restricted than pre-pandemic. Face coverings were routinely worn in meetings and interviews in addition to maintaining a minimum of two meters distance. Together the various health measures and reduced regime created a milieu in which the ongoing pandemic was ever-present.

The data from interviews and fieldnotes were coded and thematically analysed to identify key issues. A grounded theory approach was adopted, using the data and responses to guide the construction of theory.

As a manager working in HMPPS, albeit not at the research site, my position is that of an ‘insider’ ethnographer. This can be helpful as the setting and practices are familiar and it can be easier to gain access and establish trust. Nevertheless, there is a challenge of maintaining an appropriate perspective. While outsider researchers are often engaged in a process of fostering intimacy with an unfamiliar world, insider researchers produce a degree of distance from a familiar world, to generate critical perspective (Hodkinson, 2005; Young, 1991). This is not simply a technical process, but also an emotional one. As with many researchers, I felt empathy and appreciation for those I was researching. These feelings were intensified as I had worked as part of the HMPPS response to the pandemic and so understood the risks those I was researching had faced and the efforts they had made. Maintaining an appropriate perspective can be difficult having undergone such an intense shared experience. I attempted to preserve a critical lens through structures such as focussing on a site that is not part of my everyday working life; planning questions, themes and issues; using external reviewers or supervisors (see also Bennett, 2015c). The most important element, nevertheless, is the practice of reflexivity on the part of the researcher, being aware of how the context and their dual role, potentially influences research subjects (Bennett, 2015c; Hodkinson, 2005; Young, 1991). By conducting the fieldwork over two months and then taking time to analyse and write up the findings, space was created for reflexivity and critical distance.

Prison managerialism in a pandemic

The quote from a prison manager at the beginning of this paper reveals how the lockdown heralded a strange new world. The eerie emptiness of the roads was described by several managers as ‘surreal’, with one describing it as being ‘a bit like a scene from a post-apocalyptic film’. Yet the prison was ‘a place of safety’, sealed off from the world outside.

Initially, the response was to treat the lockdown in a similar way to short-term regime restrictions that are an occasional part of prison life, due to security searches or due to having insufficient staff available to operate a full regime. As one custodial manager stated: ‘I class it as an incident. It's all hands to the pump, we’re all sticking together regardless of rank. It was very much let's pull our sleeves up and get out there’. The prison responded by setting up four teams to deliver the work of the establishment. The first team developed a restricted regime in which prisoners remained in their cells for protracted periods, so implementing the public health recommendation to increase social distancing (O’Moore and Bennett, 2021). Small groups of prisoners would be unlocked to have time in the open air, use the showers, telephones and undertake other domestic tasks. The second team led on the coronavirus risk management, such as processes for cleaning, health monitoring and other actions that would reduce the transmission risk. This was a rapidly evolving area with new advice being issued regularly and having to be translated into action by the local team. A third team managed communications, producing written information and offering face to face communications. They set up regular consultations with prisoners through a forum with identified ‘COVID reps’ for each wing. These representatives would attend the forum meetings and then be out of their cells throughout the day so that they could relay the information back to their peers on the wing when they were unlocked. A fourth team managed staff wellbeing. They would help people at work and those who were absent, offering both emotional and practical help, including helping them with shopping or other daily tasks that may not be possible for those isolating due to infection or health vulnerabilities. The team produced in-cell activity packs to offer some occupation for prisoners locked in their cells for protracted periods. This team also played a role reaching out to the local community and supporting charitable causes such as the local food bank.

The establishment had to respond initially on their own initiative, with relatively little central direction. Nationally, the organisation transitioned into ‘command mode’ rather than normally daily operation and a ‘Gold command’ arrangement was put in place to issue instructions and guidance to prisons. Over time, this arrangement became more significant, with instructions issued, for example for the ‘cohorting’ of the population, creating separate spaces in which people were separated due to health vulnerabilities (shielding), due to current infection (protective isolation) or as a preventative measure when they first arrived into the establishment to minimise the risk of infection being imported (reverse cohorting) (O’Moore, 2020). The pandemic significantly disrupted everyday management in prisons and led to a refocus on mitigating immediate health risks and delivering operational tasks such as: ‘settling prisoners, settling staff, making sure you just get through to the end of the day’ (supervisory officer).

The shift from everyday management to pandemic response disrupted the working lives of managers, redrawing the contours, as will be described below.

Disrupting managerialism

In relation to managerialism, the impact was dramatic. Almost immediately, performance targets, audits and inspections were suspended, while local independent monitoring boards started working from home, only exercising their functions remotely, if at all. The reduced monitoring was also compounded as many of those who would normally be tasked with scrutinising and enforcing compliance with performance measures, such as the offices of the regional prison group director, were no longer attending prisons and were themselves involved in alternative pandemic response work. After the initial wave of the pandemic, there was a partial restoration of monitoring and scrutiny: data started to be collected on health issues and regime activity, albeit more limited than that collected previously; audits were reintroduced in an adapted form with less intensive remote assurance checks, with a full audit programme not commencing until April 2022, and; the independent inspectorate of prisons initially commenced constrained ‘short scrutiny visits’ in April 2020, enhancing them to become ‘scrutiny visits’ in August 2020 and returning to full inspections in May 2021 (Taylor and Bennett, 2022). The managerial infrastructure was disrupted over a protracted period.

Many managers acknowledged that the extant managerial system was not relevant to the pandemic response, and it was not realistic for it to continue. This was summed up by one operational manager, in words that echoed many similar sentiments:

‘I think everyone was relieved. It's difficult to describe … the pressure [and] … anxiety that the pandemic was causing, in your personal life and worrying about your own health, plus the pressure of having to operationally run a prison that's just had a massive change in regime, worrying about your staff, to then having to worry about performance, which when you think about the hierarchy of needs, it doesn’t feature there. I would say it was a relief because we didn’t have to worry about things that at that time weren’t important … [A]t the time we were focused on our basic needs, personally basic health needs, … basic operational requirements, and supporting staff and making sure they were coming in … to make sure everything is done. It was a relief’. (Operational manager)

For many managers, this reduced monitoring also highlighted their discontent with managerialism. One manager described that he was ‘elated’ that he did not have to manage under the constraints of managerialism. Others stated that the reduced bureaucracy freed them from ‘data, returns and paperwork’ (custodial manager), allowing them more time to spend with colleagues and prisoners. Others enjoyed the greater sense of autonomy they experienced: ‘You could plan your own day out and didn’t have someone breathing down your neck. We still made sure everything was done properly, but we could work more freely’ (supervisory officer). While others felt freedom from unrealistic demands where: ‘Targets are often so tight because they don’t take account of issues such as staffing levels. It's always so tight, every year you are cutting it to the wire’ (non-operational manager). Some also expressed concern about the meaninglessness of many measures, contrasted with the more meaningful work they experienced in responding to the pandemic: ‘… sometimes we get bogged down in targets and percentages and things like that. It’s great having the percentages but how does that equate to the job we do at the door which is the core at the end of the day’ (operational manager).

The disruption of managerialist targets and audits was broadly welcomed as necessary to enable prisons to focus on the pandemic response. It also invited, what one manager described as a ‘reset’, in which prison managers could ‘think about what we do and why’ (operational manager). What did emerge, as will be described below, was an altered relationship between central and local parts of the organisation; a renewed sense of place, and; a reinvigorated sense of agency amongst managers.

Recalibrating national and local relations

In place of the managerial regime, a new relationship developed between the central organisation and local establishments. A command model was established, reflecting the Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Programme (JESIP), in which a central Gold command team exercised strategic leadership (JESIP, 2021), issuing instructions regarding the restrictions that should be in place, the mitigations that should be implemented to reduce the infection risk, and the boundaries on permissible activity. There was central oversight of issues such as population management and later, as the initial lockdown eased, there was a gateway process for authorising the reintroduction of regime activities (HMPPS, 2020). Although superficially, this hierarchical relationship may appear to replicate the structures of managerialism, it was in fact experienced differently. Generally, the central guidance was welcomed as being expert-informed and of practical value. Moreover, prison managers exercised tactical and operational leadership, having discretion and autonomy over how they implemented these instructions at a local level. There was a reduced level of scrutiny as intermediate managers who would normally be engaged in the surveillance of prisons, were redeployed to other tasks. Managers felt invested with greater trust, responsibility and autonomy within their local context. Appropriating language used to describe the nature of authority over prisoners (Crewe et al., 2014), there was a shift in the ‘weight’ of power being exercised from the centre. Crewe et al. (2014: 397) described a continuum between ‘lightness’ (relaxed, co-operative, approachable) and ‘heaviness’ (oppressive, confrontational, intimidating), and the predominant experience of managers during the pandemic was that there was a lightening in the exercise of power by the central organisation.

Renewed sense of place

It has been described that managerialism has a pull towards a centralised, global perspective and ‘… will typically not be too interested in the more “dense” social relations, and the sensitivity to local historical traditions and past events, implied by the concept of “a sense of place”’ (Sparks et al., 1996: 78). Many managers described how the disruption of managerialism during the pandemic gave space for altered social relations and a renewed sense of place.

The reduced focus on centralised targets and processes meant that managers had more time to pay attention to the local culture and people. Despite the challenges of social distancing, which reduced social interactions, managers recognised the value in maintaining positive relations and communicating effectively with staff and prisoners. Across international settings, prisoners and staff have described how the quality of communications during the pandemic could affect certainty and legitimacy (Garrihy et al., 2022; Maycock, 2022; Schultz and Ricciardelli, 2022; Suhomlinova et al., 2022). As well as making themselves visible and accessible during activities and at other times when some limited interaction was possible, formal briefings were introduced for staff and prisoner ‘COVID reps’ which were then cascaded to others, written communications were produced, and occasionally other methods were deployed such as messages on in-cell television channels. Investing in relationships and communication had an instrumental value, enabling managers to identify and resolve problems, reduce resistance and secure compliance. Engagement was also considered by many managers to have an affective quality, as a way of building cohesiveness between colleagues, and with prisoners. The altered relationships were described as less hierarchical: ‘It was a good team effort. If we’re gonna give the lads, the men, what they need then we’re all going to have to work together. Whether you’re wearing a suit or whether you’re a cleaner … we’re all in it together’ (custodial manager). Also, between staff and prisoners, it was described that the pandemic brought a shift: ‘[COVID] reps were prisoners who helped with communication. We knew we needed buy in from the men, so having communication from other prisoners was helpful. The discussions we had helped to humanise us, and we shared that we had our own anxieties, vulnerable family members at home. It was important that we showed that we weren’t just black and white, that we were more than a uniform. We had to work together’ (supervisory officer). Breaking down social barriers enabled the nurturing of a sense of togetherness in the face of shared adversity, a factor that offered some comfort to prisoners facing severe restrictions (Garrihy et al., 2022).

As well as this reorientation towards the internal community, the prison also pivoted in its relationship with the local community outside of the prison, including supporting the local foodbank and raising money to purchase tablets so that residents at a local care home could make video calls with their relatives. These actions mirrored a general rise in local philanthropy that emerged during the first wave of the pandemic. There was a positive effect within the prison, by giving staff and prisoners an activity to take an interest in, distracting them from their own anxieties and offering some perspective about the difficulties others were experiencing. Community relationships were helpful later when the prison attracted national media attention during an outbreak, with local politicians and dignitaries publicly expressing their support for the prison.

Many communities responded positively in the face of the pandemic and prisons were no exception. Within the limitations of the context, with reduced social interactions and activity, managers emphasised the importance of communication and sustaining relationships. This was seen as instrumental in maintaining order and ensuring basic needs were met but was also intended to support wellbeing. The pandemic brought a reorientation from the centralised and sometimes abstract concerns of managerialism, towards the local people and a sense of place.

Reinvigorating agency

A significant aspect of managerialism is the attempt to harness the subjective capacities of individuals through human resource practices. By re-shaping individual identity and occupational cultures, managerialism has become more embedded and pervasive. During the pandemic, due to the disruption of managerialism, individual managers were able to reinvigorate their own agency. Three particular examples were highlighted by interviewees, which will be briefly described below.

Prior to the lockdown, the Governor of the prison had in early January 2020 signalled his concern about the potential for a global pandemic and started practical preparations. He had made a dramatic statement in a senior management team meeting that the pandemic would be the defining event of this generation. In his words: ‘this is our world war coming now’. Action was taken including installing sinks outside the prison to enable hand washing, purchasing personal protective equipment and electronic thermometers, and appointing a team to lead on preparations. Although initially the Governor's statement was met with scepticism and even some ridicule, he was subsequently credited for what an operational manager described as his ‘almost Nostradamus like’ foresight and initiative, which enabled the prison to be more ready for what came next.

When the lockdown was announced, the Deputy Governor organised the management team into four groups: regime delivery; communications; well-being, and; COVID-response. Many managers described that this reorganisation gave clarity and structure at an uncertain time. As one operational manager described:

‘As we went into lockdown, all our regional stuff went, and they went off to do whatever and it was almost like “it's now down to you lot to get on with it”. It was quite enlightening because we just got on with it. We didn’t need anybody to say have you thought of this, have you thought of that, because we got the working groups together. It was hard work. Me personally I was coming in every day at seven o’clock and going home at seven o’clock at night for the first few weeks and I think everyone was the same – [Custodial Managers], officers, other operational managers. We put it in place really quickly. It was good’.

As the pandemic response developed, public health measures and national guidance evolved. Many singled out the operational manager who led the COVID-response team for enabling this to be managed effectively. He provided a link, translating the national guidance into local practice. He was trusted by managers and staff around the prison and seen as a source of credible advice.

As well as these three examples of individuals who were singled out by their colleagues, many others felt invigorated with a sense of purpose. One custodial manager described how this felt:

‘I don’t want to say they were excited because I think that's the wrong word, but it was something different and the team I had around me relished the challenge. We wanted to work together. So yes, there was a new focus, there was a new drive. Everybody knew what they wanted to achieve. Whereas now it's what do we need to achieve? Is it these targets or is it about key work? Actually, the key focus was about making sure everyone was safe. They had clear direction. Everyday they knew coming in what they had to do – get the lads out for X amount of time everyday, shower, exercise, phone calls, getting them fed, but keeping everyone safe and supporting the establishment. It was clear – black and white – what we had to achieve and I think everyone relished that. There was that community feel’.

The shift to pandemic response brought a simplification and clarity for managers – they had to preserve life by implementing public health measures, including social distancing, and had to deliver the logistical challenges of the prison regime. These were not solely technical tasks, but were undertaken in a way that preserved legitimacy, trust and relationships, as encapsulated in ‘that community feel’. Many described that their skills had been enhanced, that they had been reinforced in their view of the importance of investing time in people management, and that they had discovered previously untapped reserves of personal resilience.

Many managers articulated a sense of public duty as both a professional value and an element of self-legitimacy. As one non-operational manager said: ‘You know that this is not a job that shuts down for Christmas. It's 24/7. There was no question in my mind that I wouldn’t go on turning up to work’. Many managers attended work while having concerns about their physical health, indeed many did contract coronavirus and experienced ill-health. Many also had to manage the impact of the pandemic on their domestic lives including being separated from loved ones, home schooling of children and supporting family members. Previous work on the values of criminal justice managers, most notably that of Rutherford (1993), focus on intrinsic values (punitiveness, liberal humanitarianism) and instrumental values (expedient managerialism) (see also Bennett, 2015a). During the pandemic, professional values appeared to be stripped of their criminal justice context and instead managers described being part of a wider national effort, reflecting a broader public sector ethos in which public interest was prioritised over personal interests (Lawton et al., 2013). The pandemic response has been described as reinvigorating of the notion of public service ethos, both within public sector organisation and in the public imagination (Shand et al., 2022), and this was echoed by prison managers, who perceived themselves participating in a national crisis and acting out of civic duty.

The pandemic disrupted the normal operation of prison management. In particular, the tightly controlled managerial infrastructure was temporarily disbanded. In its place, emerged an altered relationship between the central organisation and the prison at a local level. There was also an enhanced sense of place and a reinvigoration of professional agency. While globalisation is sometimes presented as in competition with and even obliterating local culture, the relationship is characterised by duality (Bennett, 2015a; Doogan, 2009; Kennedy, 2010). During the pandemic, prison managers were navigating an altered ‘glocal’ mix between managerialism and localism.

Pandemic recovery and rediscovering managerialism

Over time, the national pandemic response evolved, particularly with the development of a vaccination programme. Restrictions started to ease, albeit haltingly as a further lockdown was implemented in the winter of 2020–21 and many restrictions remained in place throughout 2021. Legal restrictions introduced to manage the risk from coronavirus were ended in February 2022, but due to the higher risks, prisons remained subject to the National Framework until May 2022 (HM Prison and Probation Service, 2020).

As the threat from the pandemic receded, HMPPS started to re-establish the managerial infrastructure. The national prison performance tool, which comprises 33 measures to evaluate prison performance, including quantitative targets, audit outcomes, independent inspection results, and prisoner feedback in Measuring the Quality of Prison Life assessments (Ministry of Justice, 2020), was suspended at the end of March 2020, but reintroduced in October 2021, albeit initially as a data collection tool without targets. The tool was fully operationalised with targets in April 2022. Audits were similarly suspended in March 2020, with remote assurance reports introduced in July 2020, which involved prisons collating documentation that could be scrutinised by auditors. This offered less rigorous assurance as it lacked observation of practice. Full on-site audits were reintroduced in April 2021, albeit at a slower pace than pre-pandemic and with periodic suspensions due to local outbreaks. In February 2022 auditing returned in a similar format to pre-pandemic. HM Inspectorate of Prisons initially suspended their work, but developed an adapted process of ‘short scrutiny visits’ in April 2020, which offered focussed scrutiny of key areas (HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2020a). These were superseded by expanded ‘scrutiny visits’ in August 2020 (HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2020b). Full inspections recommenced in May 2021. By mid-2022, the managerial infrastructure had been re-established almost identically to that which existed before the pandemic.

The response of managers to the re-introduction of the managerial architecture was mixed. Some lamented the erosion of the autonomy and sense of place they had experienced during the pandemic. There were concerns that unrealistic demands would be created and targets would not be sensitive to the ongoing disruption caused by coronavirus outbreaks, or indeed other pressures such as the higher staff turnover and recruitment challenges in the post-pandemic labour market (HMPPS, 2022b). Others also held a more general scepticism towards managerialism, in particular highlighting problems such as the meaninglessness of some targets; gaming the system, and; over-reliance targets so that prisons are, in the words of an operational manager, ‘measured to death’. There were many managers, however, who welcomed the reintroduction of targets and monitoring, seeing this as a return to ‘normality’. Others also viewed targets as generally useful in communicating strategic intent, maintaining standards, and motivating additional effort.

In one senior management team meeting, a discussion focussed on a self-assessment report (SAR) the establishment had produced, which is part of how HM Inspectorate of Prisons assesses the quality of leadership in a prison. The commitments in the report were subject to scrutiny and there was a constant refrain that: ‘We can’t say things in our SAR and then not do it’. The consequences of poor delivery were emphasised in dramatic language, with the assertion that if the SAR was inaccurate: ‘we’ll get murdered’. Such metaphors convey the emotional impact of adverse scrutiny and the deeply held commitment to avoiding criticism. The violent metaphor also conveys a particular culture of managerialism which is masculine and competitive, even adversarial. The discussion illustrated how managerial processes are imposed from above but are also given depth and meaning through the agency and habitus of prison managers.

The post-pandemic recovery process featured ‘managerial clawback’ (Bennett, 2019). The structures and processes of managerialism were reinstated and the professional habitus of prison managers had also not been entirely altered by the experiences of the pandemic. Managerialism continued to be accepted as normality, and deeply embedded in the practices and thinking of managers.

One significant area where a return to pre-pandemic norms was uncertain was the regime available to prisoners. The more limited regime offered to maintain social distancing had the collateral impact of reducing violence in prisons (HMPPS, 2022c). At the research site, as the pandemic subsided, they had reintroduced activity in a controlled way, through what was described as a ‘50–50 regime’. Under this approach, half of the prisoners would go to work or education activities in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. When not at work, prisoners would be unlocked in small groups for domestic activities including exercise, showers and cleaning. This approach had been developed locally to provide the best balance between mitigating the coronavirus risk, providing constructive activities and maintaining order and safety. Generally, managers described this regime as an improvement on the pre-pandemic regime in three ways. First, fewer people unlocked provided better control and supervision. Second, given the limited availability of constructive activities such as work and education, providing everyone with part-time activities was perceived as fairer than providing only some with full time activity. Third, managers particularly criticised the previous practice of having large numbers of prisoners, in some cases everyone on a wing, unlocked during evenings and weekends for unstructured recreation, known as ‘association’. This practice was seen as breeding boredom, anti-social behaviour and enabling the illicit economy to flourish. Having less people unlocked and only for more structured activities, was welcomed as an improvement. Most managers hoped that the 50–50 regime could be maintained but were concerned that this may not be possible due national performance targets or expectations from HM Inspectorate of Prisons. HM Inspectorate of Prisons have been critical of the ‘slow and inconsistent’ reintroduction of regime activity (Criminal Justice Joint Inspection, 2022). The Chief Inspector has cautioned against using restricted regimes to manage safety and instead argued that safety is best achieved: ‘where there are enough experienced officers in post and strong leadership. This is complemented by a robust strategy for preventing drugs coming into prisons and meaningful opportunities for prisoners to work, learn and socialise in a way that helps them to prepare for a successful life on release’ (Taylor, 2022). As independent inspections are a public assessment of prisons, and outcomes are incorporated into prison ratings, the Inspectorate exert significant influence on how prisons operate.

The challenge of future regime design highlights some of the tensions present in the system. There are competing objectives, including maintaining safety, delivering constructive activities, staff and prisoner expectations, and the expectations of external scrutiny bodies. The complexity of this issue was reflected in the Prison Strategy White Paper (Ministry of Justice, 2021). This launched a programme for ‘Future Regime Design’, which envisaged that rather than a nationally designed template for activity, guidelines would be provided to ‘support and empower Governors … to design their own regimes to meet strategic objectives’ (Ministry of Justice, 2021: 25). Local managers themselves acknowledged that autonomy in such complex and contested areas can be challenging. Being able to refer to national instructions could sometimes simplify complex problems, but where delegated authority existed, prison managers would have to navigate competing interests and undertake careful communication and decision-making.

A further area that managers particularly focussed on during the recovery period was the management of staff. A persistent concern of managers was that colleagues who had joined during the pandemic would be accustomed to managing smaller groups in a tightly controlled environment and would find adapting to an expanded regime difficult. For example, one custodial manager stated:

‘[W]e’ve had a lot of staff recruited before, during and after the pandemic They’ve never seen ways of working like we did five or ten years ago. And at the moment we do a 50–50 regime, so if we unlock 500 men to go off to work and they’re in the corridors, well I’m used to 1000 going to work. It's not fearful. But some of these newer staff coming through have never experienced that. Generally it means more violence. That might shock them and I worry about retention’.

Managers were concerned about the general erosion of skills during the pandemic. Whether that was security awareness, conflict resolution or interpersonal skills, there was concern about the impact on the ‘jailcraft’ of officers. One operational manager talked of the deterioration of staff skills in key areas as being the ‘COVID headache’, persisting after the pandemic. Managers saw themselves as having a critical role in offering visible leadership, support and guidance to colleagues in order to improve the quality of practice and support people through a challenging transitional period.

The challenges faced by managers and the organisational response revealed a set of tensions and different approaches in the management of prisons. The re-establishment of the apparatus of targets and audits indicated that managerialism would remain central, despite the temporary disruption during the pandemic. The response of many managers also indicated that managerialism remained embedded in their professional culture and identity. However, the pandemic and the complexities of recovery highlighted the limitations of managerialism. The uncertainty of designing post-pandemic regimes meant that highly centralised and directive approaches were not adopted, instead, prison managers were encouraged to act with a degree of autonomy in developing regimes that balanced safety and constructive activity. Further, prison managers faced a challenge in leading people through the aftermath of the pandemic. Understanding these problems and developing solutions was beyond the reach of managerial apparatus and instead required an approach to management rooted in the local context. What was emerging was a structural acceptance of an altered glocal mix, with managers playing an enhanced role in a recalibrated relationship between centralised managerialism and localised practice.

Conclusion: prison managerialism after the pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic had a dramatic impact upon society, but as the threat eased, legal restrictions were lifted and economic and social life started to return to previous patterns. There have, nevertheless been lasting impacts, just as the Spanish flu pandemic following the First World War left not only the emotional scars of millions of deaths, but also bequeathed a legacy that evolved in political, social and economic life for decades after (Spinney, 2018). Early analysis has suggested that in the UK, pre-existing trends have been accelerated and amplified; previous practices disrupted, and; innovations emerged (British Academy, 2021). Most significantly, these impacts are seen in transformations in the economy and labour market; exacerbating social inequalities; and the role of local community (British Academy, 2021). This present study has attempted to focus on the impact of the pandemic on a particular group of people, in a particular place at a particular time. Such a micro-level examination can, nevertheless, also offer an insight on broader social trends.

Prison managers entered the pandemic shaped by over two decades of managerialism including an extensive architecture of monitoring through targets, audits and other forms of scrutiny. The professional culture and identify of managers had been moulded over time so that managerialism was embedded in the habitus prison managers. More recently, however, cracks had been starting to show in the hegemony of prison managerialism. The first significant attempt to increase autonomy, localism and develop an alternative to managerialism in ‘reform prisons’ had faltered, but had revealed the potential for change (Bennett, 2019). The hold of managerialism in the habitus of prison managers had also been shaken by the period of austerity, in which managers complied, but only at the cost of growing estrangement (Bennett, 2015b).

The immediate impact of the pandemic was a dramatic, if temporary, disruption of managerialism. The infrastructure of targets, monitoring and auditing was suspended and instead managers turned their attention to the task of protecting people from coronavirus, preventing the virus entering the prison, and preparing to mitigate the spread and impact of any infection. The relationship between the centre of the organisation and local establishments was altered, with central guidance and instructions being issued but with significant autonomy over how that was applied in individual prisons. Within this context of reduced monitoring and increased autonomy, managers developed a stronger sense of agency and a greater sense of place. Although the public inquiry into the pandemic has not been completed, there has been Parliamentary scrutiny, which has highlighted the success of managers in mitigating the health risks, preserving life and maintaining safety and order during the initial wave (House of Commons Justice Committee, 2020).

As the threat from the pandemic receded, it was clear that the age of managerialism was not over. Indeed, the architecture of performance targets, audits and close monitoring was re-established intact. The hold of managerialism in the habitus of prison managers had not evaporated, with many accepting the reintroduction of managerial practices as a return to ‘normality’. The Prisons White Paper placed performance monitoring, targets and league tables at the centre (Ministry of Justice, 2021). This process of managerial clawback shows that any ideas that the pandemic would mark a radical departure from the neoliberal practices of managerialism, were far-fetched.

Yet, all has not remained exactly as it was before the pandemic. Some changes were reflected in the structures of prison management. The problem of future prison regimes, for example, is being addressed through a combination of central guidance and local discretion to apply this in a particular context. The White Paper also promises that prison governors will be encouraged to identify those areas where they have discretion and successful leaders will be offered greater earned autonomy (Ministry of Justice, 2021). This general direction indicates that some of the approaches adopted during the pandemic will be maintained and developed, including an altered relationship between central prescription and local flexibility. Although there has not been a wholesale casting off of managerial practices, there has been some learning from the pandemic and a continued space for enlarged agency and a sense of place.

Prison managers face post-pandemic challenges that are not captured in managerial monitoring, in particular the rebuilding of staff capability, supporting people through change and managing local powerholders including unions. Prison managers have had to rapidly develop the necessary skills during the pandemic and many have reflected that they have professionally developed during that time and want to maintain the positive people-centred leadership they have adopted.

In the post-pandemic landscape, prison managers have experienced the reintroduction of managerialist architecture and practices, yet they are also being asked to act with greater autonomy in dealing with an uncertain and complex challenge in regime design, and use their imagination, resources and leadership to establish a professional culture suitable for the new environment. Post-pandemic prison management has not seen the eclipse of managerialism, nor has it seen a complete reigning in of the increased freedom that managers experienced. It has been argued that in the economy generally the post-pandemic landscape is not characterised by radical change but instead: ‘The challenge is to map and rationalize a path between “one size fits all” and “anything goes”’ (Tooze, 2021: 302). So it is that prison managers now face an altered world in which they will have to navigate a pathway between the centralised monitoring and prescriptions that characterise the globalised practices of managerialism, but also engage their autonomy and craftsmanship in critical areas through an enhanced degree of localism. The challenge for prison managers will be to adapt to this mixed managerial economy.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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