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`Incentives and Earned Privileges
`Revisited: Fairness, Discretion, and
`the Quality of Prison Life
`Alison Liebling a
`a Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, United
`Kingdom
`
`Available online: 19 Nov 2008
`
`To cite this article: Alison Liebling (2008): Incentives and Earned Privileges Revisited: Fairness,
`Discretion, and the Quality of Prison Life, Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and
`Crime Prevention, 9:S1, 25-41
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`

`Incentives and Earned Privileges
`Revisited: Fairness, Discretion,
`and the Quality of Prison Life
`
`ALISON LIEBLING
`
`Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
`
`Abstract
`
`An evaluation of the policy of
`incentives and earned privileges
`(IEP) in prisons in England and
`Wales
`found mainly negative
`effects on prisoner behaviour
`and perceptions of fairness and
`relationships with staff. Some of
`these negative findings were due
`to the newly punitive climate in
`which the policy was introduced
`and the subsequent ethic under-
`lying new discretionary practices.
`The evaluation illustrated the
`significance of prison staff discre-
`tion, relationships with prisoners,
`
`and fairness, to evaluations of
`prison life. A key finding of the
`research was that prison officers
`deploy their authority through
`relationships with
`prisoners.
`They use the rules when relation-
`ships do not work, and this is one
`of the reasons for the centrality of
`staff prisoner
`relationships
`to
`prison life. IEP is an important
`component
`of
`contemporary
`prison regimes but needs to be
`administered fairly, individually,
`and constructively. The author
`concludes
`that policies
`shape
`
`prison life, often in their impact
`on sensibilities rather than in
`intended ways. Certain types of
`political policy action pose huge
`risks to prison quality and stabi-
`lity, in ways that Ministers may
`not realize. Responsible policy-
`making is critical in relation to the
`use of prison and the tone of
`prison life.
`
`key words: Discretion, Earned
`privileges, Fairness, Penal policy,
`Prison life, Staff-prisoner rela-
`tionships
`
`IEP is part of what’s helped to sort
`this prison out. It has been a vehicle.
`The Prison Service needed to sort out
`order and control. The imposition of
`it has helped us to get away with
`making some of these major changes.
`So yes, it’s a good thing. The concept
`is simple—prisoner behaves, prisoner
`gets extra phone card. It’s the subtle-
`ties behind it we need to think about.
`It feeds into so many things. There are
`some dangers in it too. We probably
`need to think about it a bit harder,
`understand it better. There are some
`big issues hidden in it. (Governor)
`
`In 1995 a new national policy of
`incentives and earned privileges (IEP)
`for prisoners was introduced in England
`and Wales,
`first
`in 32 ‘first phase’
`
`Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention
`ISSN 1404–3858 Vol 9, pp 25–41, 2008
`
`# Taylor & Francis
`
`establishments and shortly afterwards
`in all prisons. The policy was carefully
`evaluated in five establishments with
`distinct functions and was found to have
`complex effects on prison life. The
`policy has persisted, with various
`amendments, and the preparation of this
`paper
`coincided with
`the
`recent
`announcement of a ‘new compact’ for
`prisoners—or another renewed empha-
`sis on earned privileges by Ministers.
`Both the principle and the practice of the
`earning of privileges by ‘good behaviour’
`are thus very much live concerns in
`England and Wales, as well as elsewhere.
`Questions of what constitutes ‘good
`behaviour’
`in prison, what constitutes
`‘a privilege’ (rather than an entitlement),
`and of who should have the decision-
`making power in these areas of prison
`
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`liebling: fairness, discretion, and the quality of prison life
`
`life, tend to attract different answers
`over time, telling us much about shifting
`contemporary penal sensibilities.
`The findings and the experience of the
`study I shall outline below provided the
`stimulus for several new directions in my
`own prisons research career, including a
`close exploration of the work of prison
`officers and, in particular, the importance
`of relationships between staff and prison-
`ers in providing a context
`in which
`discretion is used. The project precipi-
`tated a major article on the process of
`doing prison research because the policy
`and political context in which the policy
`was introduced (and therefore the experi-
`ence of data collection at one stage) was
`so fraught and complex. So I was grateful
`for the opportunity to return to this
`project after some time away from it, at
`the invitation of the organizers of the
`Stockholm Criminology Conference 2008.
`I will outline key aspects of the evalua-
`tion, in the interests of brevity. A similar
`evaluation has recently been conducted of
`a more recently introduced experiment
`with incentives-based regimes in Sweden,
`and it looks from discussions so far as if
`our findings are similar. This is especially
`interesting as the context in which the
`policy has been tested seems to be quite
`different in the two countries.
`This paper will briefly describe the
`background to and introduction of the
`IEP policy in England and Wales, and
`will outline the main findings from the
`process and the outcomes study. It will
`describe the theoretical lessons learned
`and will end with a few words on
`contemporary developments.
`As one Governor said at an early stage
`in our evaluation (cited above), the idea
`seems simple, but there are some ‘big
`
`issues’ hidden in it. So what are these big
`issues? To anticipate, they are to do with
`the flow of power in prison, the chan-
`ging vision of prisoners on which penal
`policy is built, and some new views
`about the motivation and ‘moral repair’
`of individuals.
`
`The introduction of IEP
`
`In his address to the Prison Service
`Conference in 1997, Conservative Home
`Secretary Michael Howard told prison
`governors as he launched the policy:
`
`Privileges should be earned, not enjoyed
`as of right. Prisoners who behave well
`should benefit and those who behave
`badly should face sanction. Once
`earned, privileges should not necessarily
`be permanent. They will be lost if a
`prisoner’s behaviour deteriorates. The
`new system is transparently fair. This
`means real progress towards meeting
`public expectations about what kind of
`place prisons should be.
`
`The policy was not new, of course.
`Incentives and rewards for good beha-
`viour had been intrinsic to the ‘stage
`system’ and the ‘borstal system’ during
`the early 20th century (Bosworth and
`Liebling 1994). Its return coincided with
`the revival of classical economic theory,
`rational choice theory, and opportunity
`theory in political thinking, and, some
`said, with Victorian notions of
`less
`eligibility. Michael Howard’s remarks
`about meeting public expectations about
`what kind of place prisons should be
`flowed from an embarrassing series of
`escapes
`from high security prisons,
`which were linked,
`in the eyes of
`politicians, to a lax approach to privi-
`lege entitlement.
`
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`liebling: fairness, discretion, and the quality of prison life
`
`He went on to say:
`
`The general public could never com-
`prehend—let alone condone—what
`they used to hear about prisoners
`living with luxuries and free from
`control. Nor could I. I am pleased that
`we are making such stories a thing of
`the past.
`
`This story needs telling in a little more
`detail in order to understand how the
`policy took shape in establishments.
`in
`The period just before IEP was,
`hindsight, a period of liberal optimism.
`Prison populations were declining, Lord
`Woolf had written his 455-page analysis
`of the importance of justice in prison,
`following the most prison serious dis-
`turbances
`Britain
`had
`ever
`seen.
`Prisoners
`at
`four
`local
`prisons,
`Manchester
`(Strangeways), Cardiff,
`Bristol, and Pucklechurch, one long-
`term training prison (Dartmoor), and
`one young offenders institution (Glen
`Parva), had destroyed wings, education,
`and gym facilities, and had seriously
`threatened staff. Long-term problems of
`overcrowding,
`dilapidated
`buildings,
`and impoverished regimes were starting
`to be tackled, but, Woolf concluded,
`prisoners had some legitimate grievances
`about they way they were being treated.
`The main problems faced by prisoners
`were: 1) the unsanitary and overcrowded
`conditions
`to which prisoners were
`subjected; 2) the negative and uncon-
`structive nature of the regime; 3) the lack
`of respect with which prisoners were
`treated; 4)
`the destructive effects of
`prison on the prisoners’ family ties and
`the inadequacy of visits; and 5) the lack
`of any form of independent redress for
`grievances (Home Office 1991b:16).
`
`A major programme of reform was
`begun, including the appointment of a
`Prisons Ombudsman, management reor-
`ganization to strengthen leadership, and
`an explicit emphasis on ‘respect and
`responsibility’
`in the Prison Service.
`What was most marked about this set
`of proposals, and the analysis on which
`it was based, is that there was a broad
`consensus among a wide
`range of
`participants and commentators that it
`was right. There was agreement, then,
`among penal scholars and practitioners
`that (liberal, humanitarian) reform was
`long overdue. This view was consistent
`with a more general liberal consensus in
`the community. The Conservative Home
`Secretary Douglas Hurd had declared
`during the preparations for what was to
`become
`the
`radical,
`anti-custody
`Criminal Justice Act 1991, that prisons
`were ‘an expensive way of making bad
`people worse’. Underlying policy at the
`time was a pragmatic recognition of the
`financial and human costs of imprison-
`ment, and the limits to use of the prison
`as a means of rehabilitation. The prison
`population fell, regimes improved, and a
`new emphasis was placed on the respect-
`ful and legitimate treatment of prisoners,
`in the interests of fairness, order, and
`future reintegration.
`Prison officers understood, following
`discussions around the Woolf report,
`that one way of improving order in
`prisons was to treat prisoners more
`carefully. For all
`sorts of
`reasons,
`including an accident of policy person-
`nel, but also because few people digested
`the whole report, and others were aware
`of a need for emphasis, Woolf’s careful
`concept of justice was translated into the
`slippery concept of ‘care’. The focus of
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`liebling: fairness, discretion, and the quality of prison life
`
`his report was on ‘security, control and
`justice’, but the White Paper to follow
`had the title, ‘Custody, Care and Justice’
`(Home Office 1991a). Serious conse-
`quences followed. Disorder in prison
`increased, as longer hours out of cells,
`and new visions of ‘model regimes’ were
`introduced in new build and privately
`operated prisons without a correspond-
`ing increase in structure, education, or
`work. A competition in ‘liberal humani-
`tarian regimes’—a distortion of
`the
`Woolf model—was set in train. Drug
`use and assaults in particular were high
`in these new regimes with long hours of
`unlock and relatively little for prisoners
`to do. Then two high-profile sets of
`escapes from maximum-security prisons
`in 1994 and 1995 were linked to officers
`under-enforcing certain security proce-
`dures in the interests of good relation-
`ships, under the explicit guidance of
`their managers, and influenced by an
`ideology that linked collective disorder
`to a sense of unfairness. The theory is
`right, but few practitioners understood
`how the concept of fairness operated or
`applied in prison. Fairness is not the
`same as
`care. When six prisoners
`escaped
`from Whitemoor’s
`Special
`Security Unit in 1994, an investigation
`found that one prisoner had accumu-
`lated 84 boxes of property, a small
`amount of Semtex, and a bicycle. If this
`was justice, Michael Howard declared,
`then the Prison Service should be wary
`of it. It was not justice at all, it was
`laxity—but little attention was paid at
`the
`time to the meaning of
`these
`important words.
`The back-lash that followed consti-
`tuted one of the most dramatic transfor-
`mations of
`the inner life of prisons
`
`witnessed to date (although I suspect we
`are about to see another). The term
`‘decent but austere’ was used. Prisoners’
`prison lives were completely redrawn. A
`reassertion of penal authority took place.
`What David Garland calls penal sensi-
`bilities changed dramatically during this
`period, first in one direction, and then in
`another. From around 1993–94 onwards,
`there was a marked harshening of the
`emotional tone of penal policy (precipi-
`tated in part by the murder by two
`children of the young Jamie Bulger; see
`Green 2008). Inside prison, following the
`inquiries into the escapes, there was a
`deepening of the prison experience—so
`that prisoners felt the depth, weight, or
`psychological burden of prison life more
`acutely. Since 1999 there has been a more
`complex set of messages about decency,
`efficiency,
`and addressing offending
`behaviour which requires a separate
`analysis, but for now I am simply setting
`the scene for the introduction of IEP at
`the time of our evaluation.
`The principles of IEP had originally
`been agreed by the Prisons Board in
`accord with the principles developed in
`the White Paper,
`‘Custody Care and
`Justice’, following the Woolf Report.
`However, the changing political climate,
`and the escapes, significantly altered the
`context in which the final policy pre-
`parations were
`completed.
`It was
`launched simultaneously with other
`policies
`following
`recommendations
`from the Woodcock Report, and antici-
`pating and acting on recommendations
`from the Learmont Report, following
`the investigations into the escapes. The
`clear emphasis of this suite of policies,
`which interacted in an important way
`with IEP, was security and control. They
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`liebling: fairness, discretion, and the quality of prison life
`
`included increased searching, increased
`physical security, volumetric control of
`prisoners’ possessions, mandatory drug
`testing,
`the ending of handing in of
`property by prisoners’ visitors, and
`restrictions (therefore significant reduc-
`tions) in temporary release and home
`leave. Important changes were made to
`the IEP policy at the last minute, a direct
`result of an intervention by the then
`Home Secretary, which involved revising
`downwards the privileges available (for
`example, the amount of private cash
`prisoners could spend) and making it
`possible
`for
`establishments
`to start
`prisoners off on the basic rather than
`standard level of privileges.1 This altered
`the tone of the policy and the messages
`about
`it understood at establishment
`level. The moral status of prisoners
`was lowered, and the starting place
`was
`somewhat
`punitive. As
`one
`Governor said to us at the time, for
`such a scheme to work, the ethic driving
`such a scheme had to be right.
`During the policy preparation stage, I
`had been asked to conduct a brief review
`of the literature on incentives approaches
`to prison regimes, with a colleague. We
`concluded that, historically, regimes based
`on assessments of prisoners’ behaviour
`had not been very successful. We tenta-
`tively suggested that the Prison Service had
`a somewhat simplified conception of the
`links between incentives, compliance in
`prison, and the likelihood of reduced
`reoffending on release (see Figure 1A).
`We referred to one of Aesop’s Fables—the
`sun and the wind—in which the moral is
`
`1Prisoners on basic were entitled to £2.50 private cash
`per week, which meant they had to choose between
`buying tobacco or phoning home. Several prisons
`started prisoners on the basic regime.
`
`that persuasion (a warm sun) is more
`effective than force (a fierce wind).
`We proposed a more complex model
`of incentives and prison life (Figure 1B),
`in which incentives and punishments
`interact with other aspects of the prison,
`including the nature and quality of staff–
`prisoner relationships, and in which the
`rational choice model of behaviour is
`not
`the only dynamic at play. We
`suggested,
`in line with Hans Toch’s
`work on coping and maladaptation in
`prison for example, that there are many
`varieties of non-compliance,
`including
`non-engagement, and that actually beha-
`vioural compliance in prison may be the
`wrong goal
`(see Toch et al. 1989).
`Normative engagement or involvement
`is more likely to be linked to improve-
`ments
`in post-release prospects and
`behaviour.
`for such
`The time was not right
`messages to be heard.
`Interestingly,
`there was more interest in this model
`and its implications at establishment
`level
`than at policy level, another
`paradox of prison life whereby practi-
`tioners grasp the complexities of poli-
`cies not properly understood by those
`at a distance. But
`there are
`few
`mechanisms
`for
`shaping policy or
`working with establishments at
`that
`level. Policy is generally hierarchically
`developed, from the top down.
`There were two ‘arms’ to the IEP
`policy. One was related to individual
`prisoner behaviour and the search to
`improve it. This part of the policy was
`primarily aimed at the achievement of
`order, but it was also consistent with the
`intention to make regimes purposeful
`and constructive. The second ‘arm’ of
`IEP was about reshaping and gaining
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`liebling: fairness, discretion, and the quality of prison life
`
`Figure 1. Bosworth and Liebling’s Two Models of Incentives in Prison Regimes (1994). A: The simple
`model
`
`Figure 1B. The complex model. Source: Bosworth and Liebling (1994), p. 136–137.
`
`better control of ‘the system’, controlling
`institutional diversity, ‘reining establish-
`ments in’ to some sort of framework, so
`that there was a coherence and limit to
`policy on privileges within the prison
`system. So the policy was aimed at
`controlling the behaviour of prisoners,
`but also the behaviour of staff and
`Governors—this was less clearly stated
`in the instruction but was clearly driving
`its shape and tone.
`The IEP policies’ main aims were ‘to
`ensure that prisoners earn privileges by
`responsible behaviour and participation
`in hard work and other constructive
`activity’. Within this overall aim, five
`specific aims were:
`
`1.
`
`2.
`
`3.
`
`4.
`
`5.
`
`to provide that privileges generally are
`earned by prisoners through good
`behaviour and performance, and are
`removable if prisoners fail to maintain
`acceptable standards;
`to encourage responsible behaviour by
`prisoners;
`to encourage hard work and other
`constructive activity by prisoners;
`to encourage sentenced prisoners’ pro-
`gress through the prison system; and
`to create a more disciplined, better
`controlled, and safer environment for
`prisoners and staff.
`
`Three levels of privilege entitlement—
`basic, standard, and enhanced—were
`introduced, and prisoners were orga-
`nized onto these levels according to staff
`
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`liebling: fairness, discretion, and the quality of prison life
`
`reports on their behaviour. The ‘key
`earnables’ were extra and improved
`visits, eligibility to earn higher rates of
`pay, access to in-cell television, oppor-
`tunity to wear own clothes,
`levels of
`access to private cash, and time out of
`cell
`for association. There were a
`number of formal processes, like review
`boards and appeals procedures, in the
`Instruction to Governors, but as I will
`suggest below, the process safe-guards
`were weakly understood or implemen-
`ted, on the whole.
`
`The evaluation design
`
`The research was designed to capture
`processes and outcomes, and to combine
`the best of structured quantitative with
`deeper qualitative methods. Methods
`included:
`N A structured before–after questionnaire
`to random samples of 1022 prisoners and
`565 staff in 5 prisons (maximum-security,
`training,
`local, women’s, and young
`offenders institutions).
`N A process study (observation and inter-
`views with 100 prisoners and 125 staff) in
`the 5 prisons.
`N The collection of
`institutional data
`(assaults,
`injuries, use of ‘control and
`restraint’, etc.).
`N Structured visits to 7 other establish-
`ments.
`N Some ‘action research’: feedback semi-
`nars and participation in implementation
`workshops.
`
`Five establishments of different types
`were included in the evaluation, from the
`32 first-phase implementers (see Liebling
`et al. 1999). Structured visits were made
`to seven other establishments to see how
`much variation existed. Considerable
`thought went into the selection of the
`five main pilot establishments, and we
`
`were given considerable advice from our
`Prison Service Steering Group. We
`selected a range of performances as
`well as a range of population types.
`Because of the speed of implementation
`and its high-profile political nature, we
`found ourselves drawn into activities
`aimed at extracting the learning from
`our research at every opportunity. This
`was a difficult but creative tight-rope to
`walk, as I have reflected in a separate
`paper,
`‘Doing
`Prisons
`Research’
`(Liebling 1999).
`Our key research questions were
`derived from a close reading of
`the
`policy instruction and its intended out-
`comes as well as from our theoretical
`interests in the hypothesized relationship
`between legitimacy or fairness and order
`that colleagues had described. They
`were:
`N Is the environment safer? Do prisoners
`feel safer? Is the environment more
`disciplined?
`N Has compliance (willing co-operation)
`increased? Has behaviour improved?
`N Are prisoners working harder, participat-
`ing in more activities, addressing their
`offending behaviour?
`N Do prisoners perceive movements
`through the system as progress?
`N Has the pattern of spending changed?
`N How meaningful are the ‘key earnables’?
`N Is the principle being fulfilled that privi-
`leges above the minimum level are to be
`earned?
`N Has access to visits changed? Have there
`been effects on prisoners’ families?
`N Have there been changes in relationships
`between 1) staff and prisoners, 2) prison-
`ers?
`N Have there been perceived changes in
`justice and fairness?
`
`We took some important early steps
`in this project towards the formulation
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`liebling: fairness, discretion, and the quality of prison life
`
`composite dimensions measuring
`of
`complex and important aspects of prison
`life. The main variables in the structured
`questionnaire related to the main aims of
`the policy and to our theoretical expec-
`tations, and so were: attitudes towards
`IEP, prisoner misbehaviour (which was
`measured using a victim and self-report
`study since much misbehaviour is invi-
`sible to staff), order, living conditions,
`relationships with staff, perceptions of
`staff fairness, regime fairness, what we
`called (given the timing) a ‘Woolf
`dimension’ reflecting clarity and consis-
`tency or procedural fairness, perceptions
`of making progress in prison, and ‘will-
`ing engagement or participation’
`in
`activities. Each dimension was measured
`using a set of questions or items which
`were then combined statistically. We
`made very good use of a statistician
`adviser throughout the project (Gerry
`Rose). There were also measures of
`spending and contacts with family.
`
`The process findings
`
`The IEP policy was given a high priority
`in most establishments. Prisoners knew
`the policy was being used, and most were
`acutely aware of the distinctions between
`basic, standard, and enhanced. They
`knew that
`levels and the associated
`privileges were linked to their behaviour,
`and they recognized the important role
`played by staff in making decisions. The
`majority of prisoners perceived the prin-
`ciples of IEP as fair but felt
`it was
`operating unfairly. They were unclear
`about what behaviour was required and
`did not
`fully understand the appeals
`procedures. Staff on residential wings
`had the main responsibility for day-to-
`day running of IEP schemes. Decisions
`
`levels were taken in
`about prisoners’
`consultation with senior officers or
`principal officers.
`In general,
`staff
`approved of IEP and thought of it as a
`useful
`tool, allowing them to handle
`problems with individual prisoners, and
`to do so quickly. There was considerable
`variation in the use of levels, whether or
`not the scheme was location-based, the
`time it took to move up or down, and the
`criteria used. We found a low level of
`accountability for decision-making and
`little management control. Systems for
`monitoring were not very effective, and
`none of the establishments had an IEP
`Review Board in the form envisaged by
`the Instruction to Governors. Appeals
`procedures were under-developed. The
`policy was seen as ‘owned by staff’, but
`this meant that formal procedures were
`under-developed in most of the research
`establishments. There was little recogni-
`tion of the legal framework within which
`IEP was intended to work. Like with all
`policies, process short-cuts were taken.
`No officer saw the written Instruction to
`Governors.
`included
`vulnerabilities
`The
`legal
`unresolved issues about whether prison-
`ers could be obliged to undertake sex
`offender treatment or other offending
`behaviour courses (so that refusal to
`participate resulted in a level drop), the
`extent to which privileges were transfer-
`able between prisons, insufficiently clear
`reasons or criteria being given for
`changes of level, the relationship of IEP
`with the disciplinary system (and the
`risk of double jeopardy), the impact of
`IEP decisions on classification and
`release/transfer decisions
`(where
`the
`stakes are higher than for other prison-
`ers), the availability of accommodation
`
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`liebling: fairness, discretion, and the quality of prison life
`
`(in location-based schemes) restricting
`earned entitlements, and access to con-
`structive activities on the basis of need
`(rather than to material privileges based
`on desert). There continued to be con-
`troversial issues relating to visits with
`families.
`IEP had positive ‘spin-off effects’ in
`various area of prison life. For example,
`it required induction, personal officer,
`sentence planning, compacts and review
`board processes to be revisited and, in
`some cases, improved. In some prisons,
`staff were being encouraged to commu-
`nicate more, and more systematically,
`with prisoners. IEP could, at its best,
`draw together uniformed staff and
`specialists,
`including education, civil
`instructors, administration, psycholo-
`gists, and probation staff, and require
`them to communicate effectively. Quiet,
`conforming prisoners stood more chance
`of getting noticed and rewarded.
`We ranked the establishments on the
`extent of IEP implementation, using our
`own criteria. Two were regarded by the
`research team as ‘good implementers’.
`For
`example,
`the maximum-security
`prison was a good implementer, because
`it had relatively formal procedures,
`reasonably clear criteria on paper, good
`information and links with sentence
`planning,
`through-care and personal
`officer schemes, and a strong staff lead.
`This was because a strong negative
`prisoner reaction to the introduction of
`the policy was anticipated.
`
`Prisoner reactions to the IEP policy
`
`You’re hitting us where it hurts … Do
`you know what’s good about
`this
`prison? I can do what a normal father
`would do. I can play in a field with my
`
`son, and then speak to him afterwards
`on the phone … You introduce this
`and there’ll be a kick-back! (Prisoner,
`maximum-security prison)
`
`Prisoners felt very strongly about the
`inclusion of family contact in the list of
`‘key earnables’: the prospect of differen-
`tial quality of contact being linked to
`perceived behaviour was extremely threa-
`tening. Levels of earnings and access to
`private cash determined the number of
`phone cards prisoners could buy, so
`several aspects of the policy were felt to
`impinge on this most important area of
`prison life. Prison staff and managers, on
`the other hand, mostly saw the benefits of
`engaging families in placing pressure on
`prisoners to behave well. Families did not
`see the policy instruction, so there were
`some difficulties for prisoners when they
`had to explain that the number of visits
`they were eligible to receive had reduced.
`Because the policy was about earning
`privileges, the transition involved losses in
`previously taken-for-granted aspects of
`prison life.
`There was no doubt among prisoners
`at the time of our research that power
`was being reinvested in staff. Prisoners
`described feeling powerless. In the max-
`imum-security prison where there was a
`history of consultation and prisoner
`influence, they became angry, resistant
`and unusually collective in their protests
`about the policy. It felt to prisoners like
`things were being taken off them, a new
`arbitrary power was available to staff,
`and that life in prison had become more
`unfair. Even prisoners on enhanced
`described the arbitrariness of the deci-
`sion-making, where they could see that
`their own behaviour was not really
`‘good’.
`
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`liebling: fairness, discretion, and the quality of prison life
`
`Table 1. Allocation to privilege level in one maximum-security prison
`
`A wing
`B wing
`C wing
`D wing
`E wing
`F wing
`
`(VPU)
`(Dispersal)
`(Lifers)
`(VPU/SOTP)
`(Dispersal)
`(Dispersal)
`
`Basic
`
`Standard
`
`Enhanced
`
`Total
`
`6
`11
`4
`1
`17
`6
`
`5%
`10%
`5%
`1%
`18%
`13%
`
`47
`51
`35
`36
`33
`28
`
`47%
`49%
`40%
`35%
`35%
`62%
`
`48
`44
`48
`66
`43
`11
`
`48%
`55%
`55%
`64%
`47%
`25%
`
`102
`106
`87
`103
`82
`45
`
`SOTP5Sex Offender Treatment Programme; VPU5Vulnerable Prisoner Unit (sex offenders).
`
`One prisoner said:
`
`Staff have become … I don’t know if
`it’s all round but there’s been a bit of a
`different attitude from staff. I think …
`there’s a sense from them that they’re
`gaining the high ground once again,
`and that they’re tending to be a bit
`off-hand in their attitude is as near as
`I can put it. (Prisoner)
`
`The prisoner quoted above expressed
`the feeling that shifts in the power
`balance brought about shifts in attitudes
`and relationships. IEP in this context
`coincided with and reinforced a sense
`that prisoners were less morally deser-
`ving in general but that some were even
`less so. Some staff were anxious and
`uncomfortable about this change in the
`tone of relationships. As one senior
`officer said:
`
`I’m afraid this will unite prisoners. It
`will make or break the prison. (Senior
`Officer)
`
`The research found that wings within
`some establishments developed signifi-
`cantly different practices, with distinct
`outcomes for prisoners, and that these
`practices
`reflected identifiable differ-
`ences in broader aspects of each wing’s
`style and operation. Some staff resorted
`to formal means of
`‘control’ more
`
`readily than others. The relatively high
`use of privilege removal (punishment)
`seemed to be associated with distant and
`poor
`staff–prisoner
`relationships.