Offender supervision, prisoners, and procedural justice

Abstract

Relationships between prisoners and the staff responsible for them have long been considered a cornerstone of institutional legitimacy in prisons. Considerable research has focused on the everyday relationships between prison officers and those in their charge, but almost none on the relationship between prisoners and those who are responsible for their risk assessments within the custodial setting. Using semi-structured interviews, this research elicited the perceptions of 19 sentenced prisoners with regard to the procedural justice of their interactions with offender supervisors. Organised around the core components of procedural fairness – voice, respect, neutrality, and trust – the article suggests that prisoners experienced a very limited degree of procedural justice, which negatively impacted their relationships with this important staff group and their prison experiences in general.