The prison officers' search for a constructive role 1959 to 1984

This research charts the efforts made within the English Prison Service, to actively involve the basic grade prison officer in the constructive tasks associated with inmate treatment and welfare, asking why, in the twenty five years from 1959, such moves have proved largely ineffective. The work attempts to fill an evident gap in current knowledge, combining new historical detail from potentially the most significant 'penal era' of the last century, with an innovative theoretical design that seeks to explain the nature of the facts presented.This is a qualitative, historical but essentially theoretical analysis of the history of the prison officer's search from 1959 to 1984. That history and specific episodes vital to the search, are studied in Chapters Two, Three and Four. Enhancement of the officer's role it will be argued, was incalculably hindered by a context of massive service expansion, rampant task confusion and general industrial strife.The history highlights more fundamental, all-pervasive, ideological and organisational barriers to the development of the officer's welfare role. These barriers, attended to where appropriate during the historical analysis, are discussed more fully in the penultimate chapter and question the penal establishment's ability to successfully combine care and custody; the professional relationship between the prison officer and his probation colleague, and the effects of an inherent staff antagonism in the field of welfare upon the officer's role enhancement; and finally, the limitations placed upon an officer's constructive role, by inmate perceptions of his negatively custodial tradition.The debate is brought up to date both historically and theoretically in the final chapter, with a brief review of the 1991 Report by Lord Justice Woolf on the 'April 1990 Prison Disturbances', and the Government responses to his recommendations, with specific regard to the proposed future role of the prison and the officer in terms of inmate training. The proposition is forwarded, that after more than twenty five years of limited progress, the realisation appears to be officially dawning, of both the practical necessities and the organisational limitations that must be appreciated in order to award the uniformed staff a more constructive prison role.