Speakers
Dr Matthew Maycock
Workshop Session
While there is a consistent decline in levels of trade union membership Internationally, prison officer trade unions have retained relatively high levels of membership, sometimes at levels of over 80% of uniformed prison staff. Despite the high levels of unionisation within prison jurisdictions, the significance and meaning of trade union membership remains under-analysed within both the criminology and industrial relations literature. This study seeks to redress this omission, through analysing data collected through an online survey of all members of the Prison Officer Association Scotland (POAS), conducted in 2021 and and Union of Canadian Correctional Officers Syndicat des Agents Correctionnels du Canada Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN) conducted in 2022. Our analysis also provides new insights into both the reality and perception of prisons as workplaces permeated by ‘risk’. Ultimately, we argue that membership of a trade union is a critical and largely previously overlooked influence within the criminal justice system, particularly where high levels of union density are evident.
