Prison Governors as Middle-Managers and Policy Makers. Sociology of a Profession at the Heart of Prison Policy and Organisations

Today, in the Belgian context, prison governors are working in organisations characterized by legislative and managerial reforms which are based on new discourses (NPM, Human Rights, Restorative justice, Sustainable development, Risk management, etc.), new laws (2005 and 2007 prison acts) and new tools (KPI, Management plans, Balanced scoreboard, etc.).
Rarely studied, prison governors can be seen as intermediary actors occupying both the highest hierarchical position at the organisational level and a subordinate one vis-à-vis the central administration (the Prison Service and its federal and regional directions). They also fulfil a role that makes them responsible for more than 11,000 inmates and 9,000 employees. While some experts write that prison policies are rare or non-existent (and Lascoumes Artières, 2004; Mary, 2006), how can we account for prison governance, emerging and largely informal, allowing Belgian prisons to run despite the internal and external tensions and pressures, coming from inmates, guards, civil and political society?
This presentation is based on 60 semi-structured interviews conducted with prison governors (N=30) and various prison professionals (N=30). It aims at depicting governors’ concrete practices and interactions in order to account for their work as middle managers and policy makers.