Gender and Prison Organisation: Some Comments on Masculinities and Prison Management

The paper explores the significance of some contemporary writing on masculinities to the management of male prisons. It argues that the incorporation of gender into discussions of imprisonment is an important development, but that there has been a tendency to focus on prisoners rather than prisons as organisations. Drawing on work which has emphasised the gendered nature of contemporary organisation structure and struggles, the paper examines interactions around masculinity in ‘routine’and ‘exceptional’types of prison management. The discussion of the routine leads, inter alia, to an examination of the place of the body in struggles over control. The consideration of the exceptional points to the significance of the processual constitution of masculine identity. The emphasis on contestation and constitution is reiterated in the conclusion which connects the approach developed to some contemporary research on female prisons.