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Industrial relations problems in the UK Prison Service are part of the wider crisis within the penal system over the past 30 years, from the era of the Mountbatten Report of 1966 to the Woolf Report of 1990, and beyond. Incidents and disputes, concerning both industrial relations and the problems of prison regimes, attract wide media reporting, not all of it accurate. Attempts to redress this selectivity, and to demonstrate the complex linkages between industrial relations and the administration, management and reform of the penal system. Focusing mainly on the Home Office Prison Service (HOPS), and on the three main trade unions, highlights the differing political goals of the prison service, and the perpetual turmoil without clear purpose in which the principal actors seem to be enmeshed.

Interprofessional collaboration is necessary when supporting mentally ill offenders but little is understood of these interactions. The purpose of this paper is to explore prison officers’ perceptions of current and desirable levels of interprofessional collaboration (relational coordination (RC)) to understand how collaboration between these systems can be improved.

Gittell’s RC scale was administered to prison officers within the Norwegian prison system (n=160) using an adaptation of the instrument in which actual and desired levels of RC are evaluated. This differentiates between prison officers’ expectations of optimum levels of collaboration with other professional groups, dependent on the role function and codependence, vs actual levels of collaboration.

Prison officers reported different RC levels across professional groups, the lowest being with specialist mental health staff and prison doctors and highest with nurses, social workers and other prison officers. Significant differences between desired and actual RC levels suggest expertise of primary care staff is insufficient, as prison officers request much greater contact with mental health specialists when dealing with the mentally ill offender.

The paper contributes to limited literature on collaborative practice between prison and health care professionals. It questions the advisability of enforcing care pathways that promote the lowest level of effective care in the prison system and suggest ways in which mental health specialists might be better integrated into the prison system. It contributes to the continued debate on how mental health services should be integrated into the prison system, suggesting that the current import model used in Norway and other countries, may not be conducive to generating the close professional relationships required between mental health and prison staff.

This study aims to analyze prisoners’ experiences of prison drug-treatment programs in Sweden. How do they describe their personal relationships with the prison staff and with other prisoners in the wings? How do they describe the social climate and the control in drug-treatment wings? How could differences between these wings be understood?

The data consist of observations and face-to-face interviews with male and female prisoners in three Swedish prison drug-treatment wings. Analytical concepts used are roles, relationships and rituals.

The prisoners’ relationships with prison officers seemed connected to what kinds of rituals the prisoners and staff engaged in. In all three treatment wings, the staff and prisoners were involved in natural rituals. This was most frequent in the women’s prison with a 12-step program. The prisoners were frustrated with control measures but were mainly positive to the measures as preventing drugs from coming into the wing.

Only three prison wings, however in varying prisons, have been studied.

These results gives a useful prisoners’ perspective on the development of drug-prevention and treatment in different kinds of prisons.

The purpose of this paper is to examine attitudes towards prisoner-to-prisoner bullying, further considering the association between attitudes and characteristics of the prison environment thought to promote prisoner bullying.

Questionnaires were administered to 423 adult male prisoners and 195 correctional officers from three prisons in Canada. Participants completed the Prison Bullying Scale and the Prison Environmental Scale.

Convergence in attitudes between prisoners and officers were noted although staff were more likely to consider bullies to be skilled, whereas prisoners were more likely than officers to feel that victims of bullying should be supported. Associations between attitudes supportive of bullying and environmental characteristics likely to promote prison bullying were found primarily among prisoners; the strongest predictors of such attitudes were poor relationships (e.g. prisoner to officer; prisoner-to-prisoner).

The study highlights the importance of the social aspect of the prison environment. It further provides an outline of two measures that could have utility in evaluating interventions designed to reduce prisoner-to-prisoner bullying.

Interventions into prisoner-to-prisoner bullying should attend to the wider environment and not focus solely on individual pathology approaches. A “whole prison” approach to intervention should be adopted, with recognition that officers and prisoners are part of the community. A focus on the perceived relationships between all those in this community requires consideration, with a community centred approach recommended for intervention. A concentrated effort is needed on evaluating and publishing interventions into prisoner-to-prisoner bullying.

The study is the first to examine attitudes in a combined sample of prisoners and officers and focuses on the role of the wider prison environment. It also utilises a sample from three prisons as opposed to focusing on a single establishment.

Prison officers have a vital role in running a secure and healthy living environment for the inmates. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between HIV/AIDS‐related knowledge and attitude towards inmates living with HIV among the officers in an Indonesian narcotics prison.

A total of 93 officers from a narcotics prison in Bandung, Indonesia voluntarily participated in this cross‐sectional study by completing a self‐reported questionnaire. A Prior focus group discussion was also held among selected participants.

Statistical data analyses indicate that all domains of HIV/AIDS‐related knowledge, i.e. knowledge of HIV‐transmission, general HIV/AIDS knowledge and knowledge of HIV‐prevention, have substantial positive correlations with the prison officers' attitude towards inmates living with HIV. These results show that the more knowledgeable the officers are, the less likely they are to respond in an unfavourable manner to inmates living with HIV and vice versa.

Despite the limited participants involved in this study, the knowledge gaps that are identified in this study should be the starting point for the development of educational interventions for prison officers.

Sufficient educational programs and the latest materials need to be made available within the prison.

Commitment from prison authorities as well as a proper policy are also needed.

This study helped prison authorities to identify areas for knowledge development of the officers. Hopefully the positive attitude towards inmates living with HIV will be developed.

The current study aims to examine staff‐prisoner relationships through an exploration of interpersonal style. It was predicted that the interpersonal style of prison officers would impact on their perception of their ability to work with prisoners, dependent on the specific interpersonal style of prisoners.

Prison officers (n=128) completed a measure of interpersonal style (Check List of Interpersonal Transactions‐Revised: CLOIT‐R) and a series of eight vignettes designed to assess their perceived ability to positively engage with prisoners of differing interpersonal styles.

Prison officers with a friendly interpersonal style were found to be positive about their perceived ability to work with all prisoners whereas hostile prison officers were negative. Dominant officers were found to be positive about their perceived ability to work with submissive prisoners, whilst submissive officers were not positive in their judgments about working with dominant prisoners.

The results are discussed with regards to issues of role assignment within forensic settings and the application of interpersonal theory. The study highlights the need to examine a range of factors in order to understand the interpersonal relationships experienced between staff and prisoners. Future research could examine relationships between the attitudes that prison officers hold towards prisoners and rehabilitation and interpersonal behaviours.

The findings are considered in terms of the prison officer role and the provision of support and training to prison officers.

This paper is original in its application of interpersonal theory to staff‐prisoner relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the well-being of UK prison officers by utilising a benchmarking approach.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Stress Indicator Tool is widely used in the UK to assess key psychosocial hazards in the workplace encompassing demands, control, support from managers and co-workers, relationship quality, role and change management. This study utilises this approach to examine the extent to which a sample of UK prison officers meets the HSE recommended minimum standards for the management of work-related well-being. Levels of mental health and job satisfaction in the sector are also assessed using measures with extensive occupational norms. The psychosocial hazards that make the strongest contribution to mental health and job satisfaction are also considered.

Respondents reported lower levels of well-being for all of the hazard categories than recommended. Moreover, mental health and job satisfaction were considerably poorer among prison officers than other occupational groups within the emergency and security services in the UK. Considerable variation was found in the psychosocial hazards that predicted mental health and job satisfaction.

The high levels of stressors and strains experienced by UK prison officers gives serious cause for concern. Priority areas for interventions to enhance well-being in the sector are considered and areas for future research discussed.

This study highlights the wide-ranging benefits of a benchmarking approach to investigate work-related stressors and strains at the sector level.

Women represent approximately 6% of the prison population of Sweden (total ‐ 5000). This article presents a study of female inmates in the closed prison for women, Hinseberg, in Sweden. The study examines the inmates and staff culture on the basis of concepts such as interaction rituals, status, role conflicts and social representations. The methodology included questionnaires to all inmates, qualitative interviews with inmates and staff and observation within the prison. Among the findings, it was clear that some inmates have a higher status than others, which is linked to the type of crime committed, years of imprisonment, previous imprisonment, relations to male gang members, and charisma. So‐called ‘Queens’ rule the wings and maintain the inmates’ codes. Examples of these codes are: do not associate with the staff, do not talk too long with staff, do not be an informer, do not seek treatment programmes, and do not trust anybody. Those who challenge the codes are seen as an informer or traitor, and the culture in the prison was found to be oppressive towards women who want to seek treatment and support from staff. The study also shows that there are similarities in the staff and the inmates’ cultures. Experienced prison officers often have a significant impact on the staff culture, and among staff there are informal codes, i.e. that you should not be ‘too close’ to the inmates and do not trust the inmates. This leads to an objectifying and distancing approach in relation to the inmates. In both cultures stereotypical social representations of ‘the other’ is created, which have a negative impact on the possibilities for working with rehabilitation.

Professional boundary violations – intentional blurring, minimising or exploiting of institutions’ ethical and legal frameworks – have the potential to cause significant harm to prisoners, staff, prison systems and the public. There has been little empirical research on the nature, extent and impact of boundary violations in UK prisons. The purpose of this paper is to synthesise and critically review studies which have sought to explore, measure and predict boundary violative behaviour, with a view to direct future research and inform prison policies and practices.

Four internet-based bibliographic databases were used for this review. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied. Twenty studies published between 2001 and 2022 were included in this review.

There is a lack of comprehensive self-report measures around prison boundary violations. Staff and prisoner characteristics, as well as prison-specific conditions, are linked with boundary violations. Staff training, improved working conditions and amnesty programmes as well as bolstered surveillance and restricted cross-sex staff deployment were among recommendations to reduce boundary violations. “Insider” researchers offer insight and access opportunities, but they also pose ethical implications. Current studies have research design, participant sampling and measurement scale limitations which compromises the applicability of findings. Prisons need robust policies on defining, reporting, punishing and recovering from boundary violations. Collaboration between prison institutions and academics, using individuals with experience of both professions, is essential to understand, predict and reduce boundary violations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first review of empirical studies on professional boundary violations in prison.

The purpose of this paper is to present a preliminary study exploring the perception of prison officers in England and Wales regarding violence in their workplace.

Data were gathered through questionnaires administered to 152 of Her Majesty’s Prison establishments throughout England and Wales, ranging from high secure to open prisons where officers are affiliated to the Prison Officers Association. In total, 45 officers responded, seven from women’s prisons and the remainder from male adult and youth prisons. In addition, descriptive data from the Ministry of Justice statistical data set on incidents of violence are incorporated where possible.

Results indicated that violence, both prisoner on staff and prisoner-to-prisoner, is a major concern among prison officers, across all prison categories. The prison officers who took part considered there to be an absence of what they perceived to be serious measures to prevent and manage violence. Officers view the prison disciplinary system as ineffective, with reluctance for external charges to be considered against prisoners committing acts of violence within the prison.

The research is limited by a lack of external measures being obtained (e.g. observation of aggressive incidents) and the fact that the participants were self-selecting, with only a small proportion of respondents. However, it suggests a need for more detailed research into prison violence, one that integrates the views of prison staff as well as prisoners, with the former lacking in the research base to date. It also indicates a need for more focussed action from management, staff representatives and reform lobbies to explore collectively how to prevent violence in prison. Only by adopting a multidisciplinary and multifaceted approach can a comprehensive attempt at management be achieved.

Prison violence has a negative impact on correctional settings and their mission to provide a safe working environment for staff and safe environment for prisoners. Consequently, a focussed management approach on the problem is required, one that captures the view of a range of staff and prisoners. Prisoner’s violent conduct, whether assault on staff or peers, constitutes further criminal conduct. This has to be addressed through formal processes such as prison reports, police charges and potential prosecution. The latter has been under-applied. Determining the barriers to pursuing police charges and possible prosecution would be valuable to pursue. Violence against staff needs to be more thoroughly understood and not considered solely as an occupational hazard, but as a means of safe-guarding both staff and prisoners.

This study is the first that has sought to incorporate prison workforce perception on the problem of escalating levels of prison violence, using a sample from a wide set of prison environments.