‘You can't tell anyone how you really feel’: Exploring emotion management and performance among prison staff who have experienced the death of a prisoner

Abstract

This article explores how prison staff manage their emotions when dealing with the death of a prisoner. It seeks to extend current understandings of emotions in prison work by exploring emotion management and performance among prison staff who have experienced a prisoner's death. It utilises Hochschild's (1983) concept of emotional labour, which has informed previous studies of emotion in prison work, and contributes to this existing research by applying extensions of Hochschild's ideas developed by Bolton (2005) and Korczynski (2003). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 Irish Prison Service staff who have experienced prisoner deaths. A contribution of this article is that it demonstrates the shifting emotional practices and preoccupations of prison staff through the stages of dealing with a prisoner's death. This article finds that shared expectations regarding the management of emotional responses to prisoner deaths promote the necessity of concealing emotional vulnerabilities within and beyond the prison walls.

Introduction

Previous research identifies that prison staff can be emotionally impacted by the death of a prisoner (Borrill et al., 2004; Ludlow et al., 2015). Some studies have found that these impacts may endure long after a prisoner's death, with staff using a range of emotion management strategies to regulate and perform these emotions (Crawley, 2004; Tracy et al., 2006). Much of what is known about the emotional reactions of prison staff to the deaths of prisoners is gleaned from explorations of staff experiences of suicides (Borrill et al., 2004; Ludlow et al., 2015; Wright et al., 2006). The negative emotional impacts of experiencing the death of a prisoner are a prominent focus within this research. Research on staff experiences of suicides noted flashbacks and distress as common issues (Borrill et al., 2004; Wright et al., 2006). Officers may also experience feelings of loss and in the aftermath of a suicide (Snow and McHugh, 2002). Experiences of suicide may also prompt heightened awareness and anxiety about future incidents (Arnold, 2005).

Much of the discussion of how staff manage these emotional impacts is focused on humour. Research has consistently highlighted humour as shaping staff approaches to managing their emotions following the death of a prisoner. Humorous exchanges between staff after the death of a prisoner may aid in reconstructing their experiences of the incident (Tracy et al., 2006). Additional insights are found in studies that examine the broad nature of prison work, with dark humour described as ‘palliative’ (Crawley, 2004, p. 44) and a ‘coping mechanism’ (Arnold, 2016, p. 278) in the aftermath of suicides and other serious incidents. Additionally, research indicates that formal support is underused by staff following their experiences of suicide (Borrill et al., 2004). Ludlow et al. (2015) emphasise the need for prompt and effective support for staff who experience a suicide, underlining its importance in ensuring effective management of future suicide risk.

Despite this increasing recognition of the emotion work prompted by the death of a prisoner, an incomplete picture remains. Research on staff experiences of suicides has described how staff engage in emotional labour through humour and detachment to conceal negative emotional reactions, with little focus on staff encounters with other types of deaths, such as drug-related deaths, natural deaths and homicides. Moreover, limited insights exist that attempt to draw these emotional reactions together and understand how prison staff manage and perform their emotions across the different stages of their involvement with a prisoner's death, from the emergency response through the long-term aftermath. This article therefore explores the ways in which prison staff manage and perform their emotions when dealing with the death of a prisoner. A key contribution of this article is that it explores emotion management and performance arising from staff experiences of deaths across three temporal contexts, from during an incident, to the immediate aftermath and then in the time beyond. It focuses on the chronology of these incidents to provide an account of how the emotional practices and preoccupations of prison staff change following the conclusion of an emergency response to a death, and considers staff engagement with formal support provided by the Irish Prison Service as well as informal support between colleagues. Specifically, this article examines the experiences of prison officers and governors in the Irish Prison Service who have dealt with the death of a prisoner. Some key features of the literature on emotion management and performance in the workplace are discussed, followed by an overview of research on emotions in prison work. Substantive findings on emotion management and performance for staff who experience the death of a prisoner are then outlined. The findings presented herein can inform future explorations of emotions in prison work, and have implications for policy on support for prison staff who experience the death of a prisoner.