The ‘Screw Boys’ and the ‘Businessmen’: re-Negotiating Penal Power, Governance and Legitimate Authority Through a Prison Violence Reduction Scheme

Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative research, this article explores how both prisoners and staff wield authority in prison and with what effects. It combines legitimacy theory and governance theory to consider the relationship between legitimate and illegitimate governance by prisoners and offic...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Gooch, Kate (Author) ; Treadwell, James (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2023
In: The British journal of criminology
Year: 2023, Volume: 63, Issue: 5, Pages: 1219-1236
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Keywords:
prison power
Legitimacy
Peer support
prison order
Ethnography
Description
Summary:Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative research, this article explores how both prisoners and staff wield authority in prison and with what effects. It combines legitimacy theory and governance theory to consider the relationship between legitimate and illegitimate governance by prisoners and officers, as well as establishing the limits of prisoner governance in remedying the deficits in State illegitimacy. It is argued that legitimate governance by prisoners (in the form of peer-support roles) must be coupled with the legitimate use of authority by prison officers to avoid the emergence, or expansion, of illegitimate prisoner governance. When this does not exist, such peer-support roles can distort the system of power and stimulate, rather than arrest, greater decline in social and moral order.
Item Description:Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 1234-1236
ISSN:1464-3529
DOI:10.1093/bjc/azac081