The prison and the city: A tale of two cultures

This thesis explores the working lives and experiences of uniformed prison staff at HMP Pentonville and HMP Hull – two inner-city Victorian local prisons in England. It examines the meaning and role of place in the narratives of prison staff at work in two (distinct yet similar) prisons within the late modern penal system. It explores the intersection between location, economic status, identity, and community in the working lives of uniformed prison staff as they attempt to negotiate work in the late-modern prison system. This study is based on in-depth, semi-ethnographic study of two sites over the course of seven months, which included extensive observation of everyday life and work combined with 67 semi-structured interviews with uniformed staff and senior managers. Fieldwork conducted in 2014/5 coincided with a period of financial and ethical crisis in the national prison system exacerbated by austerity, with significant impact on the structures of everyday life and work in prison. These developments affected the prison system of England and Wales in its entirety, and while each prison in this study experienced similar structural changes in terms of policy related to staffing and the organisation of regimes and activities, Pentonville and Hull also remained distinct places with discrete cultures and ‘ways of doing things’, with consequences for staff and prisoners. The thesis explores the staff cultures at these two sites and traces their peculiarities and distinctions through the lens of the cities in which the two prisons are housed. It argues that place and, in particular, the way officers thought about their place, added texture and nuance to two prototypically ‘traditional’ officer cultures. It argues that officers ‘imagined’ (Anderson 2006) history, identity, and community in order to protect themselves from undesirable and unsettling experiences in their present.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Kant, Deborah

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Liebling, Alison

• prison
• prison officers

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/7c8488b8-b8fd-41ae-ab94-9a58bf097ea6/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.122746

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/391714