Maintaining a safe environment for incarcerated individuals and staff is a core task of any prison service. Concerns about risk of continued criminal activity and violence pose challenges for prison management, especially because strict measures can be at odds with a humane approach to corrections.
This presentation will discuss (1) dilemmas related to risk and safety management, and (2) recommendations for policy and practice. The paper is part of a large and ongoing research project on ‘The Social Ecology of Prison Violence’ (2023-2027), which seeks to identify why violent prison incidents occur, how staff respond to them, and how they can be prevented.
This presentation is based on findings from the first stage of the research project, which consisted of semi-structured interviews with approx. 40 directors and deputy directors of nearly all Dutch correctional facilities. The interviews revealed the following paradoxes and dilemmas in prison management and crime prevention: (1) minimisation of risk during imprisonment is at the cost of activities and a prison climate that promote autonomy and re-integration; (2) it can be difficult to identify and distinguish offenders from victims, and sanction appropriately; (3) the concentration of high-risk individuals (as opposed to dispersal) increases and decreases risks.
Many complexities in safety management are related to contraband trading and continued criminal activity from prison. The presentation will discuss the dilemmas arising in Dutch prisons and situate them in an international context, with reference to relevant academic literature.
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Dr Esther van Ginneken
Associate Professor, Leiden University, Netherlands
Esther van Ginneken is Associate Professor in Criminology at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She received her PhD in 2014 at the University of Cambridge for her thesis on ‘The pains and gains of imprisonment’. Since the start of her academic career, Van Ginneken has conducted research on imprisonment in England and the Netherlands. Her primary research interests are prison climate, prison violence, and the wellbeing of incarcerated individuals. Van Ginneken has conducted research as part of the Life in Custody Study in the Netherlands, which involves a periodic survey among all individuals incarcerated in the Netherlands. This has included studies on cell sharing, the relationship between prison conditions and recidivism, and the concept of prison climate. This research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Criminal Justice, Justice Quarterly, and Criminal Justice and Behavior. She is also well known for her work on posttraumatic growth among incarcerated individuals.
Van Ginneken is principal investigator of a five-year research project on the The Social Ecology of Violence in Prisons (2023-2027), which is financially supported with a grant from the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). This project seeks to identify why violent incidents occur in prison and how correctional officers respond to them. Innovative methods will be used, including virtual reality, to study why some conflicts escalate and others do not. The project is also concerned with violence in the context of contraband trading and continued criminal activity from prison.
