Building Trust in a Distrustful Setting: Social Work at Prison

• In Event: Prison Working Group: Social work in prison and innovative approaches to rehabilitation

Abstract

Prisons are places strongly shaped by distrust. Neither the structural framework of the institution nor everyday prison life promote trust as part of everyday culture. Punishment and rehabilitation are linked to control, security and the deprivation of freedom. Control measures such as detention, body searches, urine sampling or cell searches are often performed and perceived as displays of hierarchy and power. Circulating private information poses a danger to prisoners in the subculture of prison life and in the detainees’ hierarchy. This constitutes an unfavourable starting point for building trust.

In this situation, something is supposed to take place that strongly requires trust: social work at prison. It aims at supporting detainees to develop a positive life plan and to reprocess the criminal past. This only works in a professional relationship built on trust.

This paper will address the problem of trust in distrustful prison culture drawing on extensive field material (and in-depth qualitative analysis) on social work by external projects, working at German prisons with the mandate of preventing political and religious extremism. How is it possible to build trust in prison, given the contradiction between a required trustful work relationship and the distrustful prison culture? What individual meaning do prisoners, officers and social workers associate with trust? The findings suggest that – although the topic of radicalisation further aggravates the situation –, external projects are able to advance in building trust, e.g. by accentuating their role of being outsiders to the system, but also by a person-centered pedagogical approach.

Author

• Maruta Herding, German Youth Institute