Criminology & Criminal Justice PDF

800743 research-article2018 CRJ0010.1177/1748895818800743Criminology & Criminal JusticeBullock and Bunce Article ‘The prison don’t talk to you about getting out of prison’: On why prisons in England and Wales fail to rehabilitate prisoners Criminology & Criminal Justice 2020, Vol. 20(1) 111­–127 © T...

800743 research-article2018 CRJ0010.1177/1748895818800743Criminology & Criminal JusticeBullock and Bunce Article ‘The prison don’t talk to you about getting out of prison’: On why prisons in England and Wales fail to rehabilitate prisoners Criminology & Criminal Justice 2020, Vol. 20(1) 111­–127 © The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895818800743 DOI: 10.1177/1748895818800743 journals.sagepub.com/home/crj Karen Bullock University of Surrey, UK Annie Bunce University of Surrey, UK 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 organizational 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, characterized by a lack of interest among 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. Keywords Climate, Offender Management Programmes (OMPS), prisons, rehabilitation, work placements Corresponding author: Karen Bullock, Professor in Criminology, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK. Email: [email protected] 112 Criminology & Criminal Justice 20(1) 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, 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, 2017; HMIPP, 2013, 2017; Robinson, 2008). Many studies have examined the social institution of the prison documenting the 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 (e.g. Clemmer, 1940; Crewe, 2009; Irwin and Cressey, 1962; King and Elliott, 1977; Liebling and Arnold, 2004; Morris and Morris, 1963; Sparks et al., 1996; Sykes, 1958). While 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 et al., 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 organizational 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 the 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 – characterized by a lack of interest in rehabilitation among 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, Cullen and Gendreau, 2001; Hollin, 2011). The 20th century was characterized by the rise of a ‘rehabilitative ideal’ focusing on social welfare Bullock and Bunce 113 and the psychological treatment of prisoners based on sociological and psychological theories of behaviour (Cullen and Gendreau, 2001; Hollin, 2011). Promoted by a deepseated 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-20th century was characterized by a model of penal practice that promoted the diagnosis and treatment of offenders (Hollin and Bilby, 2007). This ‘individualized’, ‘treatment’ model came under attack in the latter part of the 20th 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 (Cullen and Gendreau, 2001; Hollin and Bilby, 2007). Essentially, it has been argued that the 20th century saw support for the ‘rehabilitative ideal’ fall away, in favour of punitive discourses and practices which stressed incapacitation and deterrence (Feeley and Simon, 1992; Garland, 2001; Pratt, 2007). 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 (Hutchinson, 2006; Robinson, 2008). 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, including 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 (Maguire and Raynor, 2017; Petersilia, 2003; Taxman, 2004). 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/contribute towards society in some way – have also been identified as supportive of the process of desisting from crime (MoJ, 2013a). 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). While 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 114 Criminology & Criminal Justice 20(1) 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 reoffending (SEU, 2002) marked an important moment in explaining this change (Hudson et al., 2007; Maguire and Raynor, 2006). This report made a case for an individualized 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). Carter (2003) and Halliday (2001), 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 individualized 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 prisoners back to crime, has been evident in penal policy (MoJ, 2010, 2013b, 2016). ‘Through the gate’ resettlement services, aimed at smoothing the transition from 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 then, the rehabilitative ideal never died. However, it is far less evident that this rehabilitative ideal has been achieved in practice. While, 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 (Burdon et al., 2002; Harper and Chitty, 2005; Lin, 2002; Maguire, 2004), and establishing and sustaining OMPs in closed institutions is far from straightforward (Bullock et al., 2018; Lin, 2002). 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 Bullock and Bunce 115 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 (May 2018), prisons in England and Wales have faced severe fiscal cuts, leading to deteriorating conditions, and the sidelining of rehabilitation (Garside and Ford, 2016; PAC, 2013). Prisons are bureaucratic, operate in line with written policies, guidelines and legislation and within an organizational culture which emphasizes 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). 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 (Blagden et al., 2016; Hamm and Schrink, 1989; Kjelsberg et al., 2007; Maguire and Raynor, 2017). Positive attitudes and beliefs about change held by prison staff and prisoners are vital for fostering effective offender rehabilitation and for 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 et al., 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 (Clarke et al., 2004; Hamm and Schrink, 1989; Lin, 2002) and hold more or less positive views about the role of OMPs in prison (Clarke et al., 2004; Liebling et al., 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 prioritized (Craig, 2004; Lin, 2002). Methodology This article is based on 27 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 favourable ethical opinion from the University of Surrey Ethics Committee. The semi-structured interview covered areas such as prisoner experiences of adjusting to imprisonment, the prison 116 Criminology & Criminal Justice 20(1) 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 20 male prisoners. Ten were aged 18–30 (37%); 14 were aged 31–50 (52%); one was aged 50+, and the age of two participants was unknown. In terms of ethnicity, seven were white (26%); 17 were black (63%); two were Asian (7%) and one was mixed. Eighteen were serving sentences of five years or longer (67%) – 12 of whom were on life sentences (44% of the total sample) – and nine were serving sentences of under five years (33%). Sentences ranged from one year and nine months at the shortest, to a life sentence with a 22-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 organizational 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’. 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. 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’. This lack of support led prisoners to believe that any 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’. 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’ 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 Bullock and Bunce 117 far as I can remember there’s only a few things, a few programmes around’. In addition, the quality of any available support was often characterized 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. 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’. 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?’ 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 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 Clarke et al., 2004; Lin, 2002; 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’. 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. The result being that ‘you get a lot of people doing things that they don’t want to do’. Unmotivated participants were thought unlikely to get much from them (see also Clarke et al., 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. 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’. Prisoners certainly described positive experiences while participating on certain prison programmes. Notably those which promote democratic participation, foster the 118 Criminology & Criminal Justice 20(1) 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 characterized by prisoners as lacking in depth and breadth – being too short in length, dealing with matters in insufficient detail and lacking in follow-up – and so unlikely to engender real change (see also Clarke et al., 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’. 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’. Delivered in groups and highly structured, prisoners often told us the programmes were 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’. 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’. 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. 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’. 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 Clarke et al., 2004; Lin, 2002). 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 box ticked’. 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’. 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 then I feel like what are they really doing […] I don’t even know what that word means anymore’. 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; Liebling and Arnold, 2004; Lin, 2002; 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 Bullock and Bunce 119 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; Liebling and Arnold, 2004; Lin, 2002). 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.’ 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’. 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?’. Frustration was also evident from prisoners’ perception that much of the 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 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. 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 monkey’s about your rehabilitation to be honest’. 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 et al., 2007; Lin, 2002): ‘then there’s some that, I’m here to get my paycheque, do my job and go’. From the perspectives of prisoners even where officers come with good intentions, cynicism can wear them down over time and initial support for rehabilitation among 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? 120 Criminology & Criminal Justice 20(1) Staff–prisoner interaction. A climate that fosters rehabilitation requires the establishment of prisoner–staff relationships founded on empathy and compassion, trust and mutual respect (Clarke et al., 2004; Hamm and Schrink, 1989; Rowe and Soppitt, 2014). 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’. However, empathy or compassion from the correctional staff was generally thought to be absent: ‘there’s no empathy, there’s no nothing’. Relationships were described by participants as impersonal (see also Crewe, 2009, 2011; Kjelsberg et al., 2007; MoJ, 2016; Warr, 2012). For one: 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?’ Moreover, sometimes relationships were described as antagonistic (see also Crewe, 2009, 2011; Kjelsberg et al., 2007; MoJ, 2016; Warr, 2012). From the perspectives of some prisoners, officers were ‘just arseholes’ [who] still have that mind frame of prisoners are bad and ‘they figure take this one brush, all of them are convicts, all of them are no good, all of them’ (see also Lin, 2002). For ‘some of the officers around the jail they look at you like they’re toerags […] you know, they just hate you’. As another prisoner comments: Behind closed doors you’re always constantly with the staff and little things that they, they’re antagonizing 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. 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 among 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’. 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. 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. 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: Bullock and Bunce 121 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. 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 individualized 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 (Carter, 2003; Halliday, 2001; MoJ, 2013b, 2016; NOMS, 2005; SEU, 2002). 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 CJJI, 2017; Crewe, 2011). 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 (HMIPP, 2013; MoJ, 2013a). Such a notion of taking responsibility resonates with core features of desistance theory and research, which stresses the 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, Farrall and Calverley, 2006; Farrall et al., 2014; Maruna, 2001). But it also parallels wider modes of neo-liberal governance which seek to ‘govern at a distance’ and shift responsibility for reform from the state to offenders (Garland, 1997; Hannah-Moffat, 2000). Thus, rather than seen as ‘objectified’ clients on to whom therapeutic interventions are imposed, prisoners are 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 emphasize 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 ‘responsibilization’ is perhaps inconsequential, because prison claims near total power over its subjects, and imprisonment induces dependency (Sparks et al., 1996; Sykes, 1958). 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. While imprisonment generally undermines autonomy, there are examples of initiatives which encourage self-sufficiency and personal responsibility by allowing 122 Criminology & Criminal Justice 20(1) 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 marginalized 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 et al., 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 include the maintenance of adequate living conditions, having opportunities to undertake meaningful rather than superficial work, having some choice about how to utilize rehabilitative opportunities and generate positive, collaborative relationships (Robinson and McNeill, 2008). When experienced as non-coercive and perceived of as self-motivated, participation in programmes can aid intrinsic desire to change (Edgar et al., 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 participation facilitates longterm 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 et al., 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; Liebling and Arnold, 2004; Lin, 2002). 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 correctional 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 (Crewe, 2011; Liebling and Arnold, 2004; Morris and Morris, 1963; Sparks et al., 1996; Sykes, 1958). 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; Bullock and Bunce 123 Tait, 2011; Warr, 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 (Crewe, 2011; Sykes, 1958; Tait, 2011; Warr, 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 (Blagden et al., 2016; Crewe, 2011; Hamm and Schrink, 1989; Kjelsberg et al., 2007; Maguire and Raynor, 2017). 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 and respect and authority exercised by prison staff has been found to influence prisoners’ perceptions of legitimacy and outcomes (Crewe, 2011; Crewe et al., 2011). 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 among prisoners and so promote desistance (Burnett and McNeill, 2005). While staff directly involved in programme delivery are usually very aware of the importance of their role – termed ‘therapeutic alliance’ (Kozar and Day, 2012; Polaschek and Ross, 2010) – 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 et al., 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, while penal policy is optimistic, a body of research is drawing attention to the challenges faced by those aiming 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. 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). 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