Procedural Justice, Posturing and Defiant Action: Exploring Prisoner Reactions to Prison Authority

Abstract

Prison staff are vital for enforcing order in prisons. However, order is not only maintained by what prison staff do, but also relies on prisoners willingly following the directives of prison staff and complying with prison rules and procedures. This article puts forward the idea that how prison staff treat prisoners can affect the social distancing prisoners put between themselves and prison staff, potentially making defiance and non-compliance more difficult to manage. Social distancing is operationalised in this article as motivational posturing. Using survey responses from 177 Australian prisoners, the article shows a strong association between prisoners’ perceptions of procedural justice in prison and their self-reported compliance with prison rules. It also shows for the first time that motivational postures exist in a corrections context, and are associated with both procedural justice perceptions and self-reported compliance behaviour. Postures are also found to mediate the procedural justice/compliance relationship.

Keywords:

• Procedural Justice
• motivational postures
• defiance
• compliance
• corrections

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 V. Braithwaite’s (2009) defiance theory has been developed to look at how individuals respond psychologically to authorities and how authorities’ actions and behaviour can have an impact on the behaviour displayed by the individual. In conjunction with what prisoners themselves believe is the right kind of behaviour to adopt in prison (i.e. the inmate code), prisons also have their own subcultures which might play a role in shaping prisoners’ posturing and behaviour. While a discussion of the prison subculture literature is beyond the scope of the current article, it is certainly possible the prison subculture may shape the posturing style displayed by prisoners.

2 In the event participants indicated difficulty with literacy or understanding of terminology, the first author conducted the survey one-on-one, reading through the survey items, explaining concepts where needed, and marking the participants’ responses on the survey. Only two participants required assistance in completing the survey. Literate participants completed the survey on their own.

3 Results regarding resistance should be interpreted with caution given the scale consisted of only two items.

4 It should also be noted that the authors indicated use of force in Slovenian prisons is low, with unjustified and unnecessary use of force practically non-existent. As indicated in the Method section of this article, use of force and excessive use of force complaints in prisons in this Australian jurisdiction has been on the rise, therefore it may be particularly important, in future research, to consider the role of self-legitimacy in understanding officers’ decisions in how they respond to prisoners in various situations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julie M. Barkworth

Dr Julie Barkworth is a Lecturer in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Griffith Criminology Institute at Griffith University. Julie’s research interests include procedural justice; cooperation and compliance behaviour; defiance and resistance to authority; policing; policing vulnerable communities; corrections; prisoner well-being.

Kristina Murphy

Kristina Murphy is a professor of criminology at the Griffith Criminology Institute at Griffith University and is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Kristina’s expertise centres on procedural justice and its impact on the perceived legitimacy of criminal justice institutions and people’s willingness to cooperate and comply with authorities. Kristina has had a number of research grants examining the impact of procedural justice policing on vulnerable communities.