The 'key question': Analysing the educational situation in prison through an object

• In Event: Methodology and prison

Abstract

In this paper, we combine situation analysis and sequential analysis in order to investigate the significance that the prison key has for pedagogical work. A prison key’s function is to hinder prisoners from escaping incarceration or from freely moving between cells or wards. It divides human beings at prison into those who are being locked in and those who lock. External social workers, who offer support and education in prison, do not have a key from the start. Being external to the justice system, they belong to neither group, but find themselves in a triadic constellation of staff, inmates and external actors. At times, prisons offer external actors a key for meeting their clients independent of prison staff, who otherwise have to open and lock doors for them. It is then a vital decision for external social workers whether or not to use a key: The ‘key question’ has consequences regarding the status of external social workers within the prison institution.

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork on social work by civil society actors in the field of extremism prevention in prisons in Germany, we analyse the various positions towards the use of a key. Using sequential analysis, we reconstruct the significance the key has for social workers and prisoners. With the help of situational analysis and positional maps, we relate and contrast the positions to each other. Our findings indicate that external social workers display a spectrum of positions on using a key, ranging from ‘locking as a functional necessity’ to ‘locking as a demonstration of power’. The key is part of a constant negotiation of their relationships to inmates and staff, both central to external social work at prison. On a methodological level, we show how situation analysis and sequential analysis are compatible and productively overlap.

Authors

• Maria Jakob, German Youth Institute

• Anja Frank, German Youth Institute

• Daniel Diegmann, German Youth Institute

• Maruta Herding, German Youth Institute