Corrections: recent attempts at workplace reform and managing change in New Zealand prisons

Abstract

During the last five years, the New Zealand prison service has been undergoing profound change. Three major changes have been attempted. "Unit management" is to divide the prison population, staff and inmates, into smaller and more stable groups where relationships between the two are more "normal' and prison officers have an increased a role in habilitation services; "case management" is to integrate programmes and services throughout an inmate's sentence, and involve inmates and prison officers in developing and monitoring that plan; new management structures have been introduced which dramatically simplified what has been usually described as a quasi-military hierarchy. The validity of the initiatives themselves is not assessed, except to note that they would require enormous changes in attitudes and behaviour from prison staff. The fate of these initiatives is examined in this research, primarily from the points of view of those who live and/or work in two prisons and those in the Department of Justice's head office who were responsible for the original visions and their implementation. Sixty-six taped interviews were conducted, seeking comments on experiences of the change process and the situation today. The results are collated with the particular perspectives of each group analysed together, and examined with insights from the literature on public agencies, labour process, and the management of change within organisations. Key findings include a singular absence of planning for, or effective dealing with, the needs of staff at a time of such significant transition. All but the most senior prison staff reported little understanding of the aims of the major changes, and great uncertainty and unease about their new responsibilities. All prison staff reported they had had little or no training for new skills and roles. While there had been head office anticipation of some level of resistance to change, there seemed to have been little or no detailed analysis or planning for effective responses to that resistance. As a result of these failures in the change process, and perhaps an under-estimation of the scale of change required from staff, the management structures have been changed but those who lost rank or status because of the shift remain bitter and angry, and the other initiatives, which required staff cooperation to fully implement, have been put into operation only very unevenly.