Prison Officers‘ Roles and the Negotiation of Prison Order: Transitioning from Carceral Collectivism to Care-based Correctional Work

• In Event: Changes in Prison Officers’ Professional Roles within the Shifting Lithuanian Custodial Sentencing Policy and Practice

Abstract

The prison order in Eastern European countries with specific features of post-Soviet penalty undergoes shifts that have an impact on prison daily life, but most notably on prison officers' perceptions of their professional roles and prison power. The prison systems of the majority of post-Soviet states continue to exhibit characteristics of carceral collectivism, such as understaffing issues where officers transfer a control and power to prisoners and a deeply institutionalized underworld of prisoner society (Piacentini and Slade, 2015; Slade and Azbel, 2022; Symkovych, 2018 and 2023; Vaičiūnienė and Tereškinas 2017; Vaičiūnienė et al. 2023). In recent decades, substantial reforms have been enacted in the legal framework, administration, and modernization of prisons. These changes have necessitated a re-evaluation of prison operations, the roles and responsibilities of prison officers, the reorganization of prison rules and daily life. The purpose of this presentation is to show how prison order is renegotiated and reconfigured in the context of evolving policy and practices. By conducting interviews with correctional officers who have daily contact with inmates, this study demonstrates how recent changes have affected perceptions of the duties and responsibilities of prison officers, as well as the social climate and power dynamics within correctional facilities.

Author

• Ruta Vaiciuniene, Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences