Qualitative interview study reveals how work autonomy enables reconnection despite alienation in prison nurses, suggesting policy alienation is a dynamic, context-mediated process.
Key Points
To examine how organizational context shapes the development of policy alienation and professional reconnection among street-level bureaucrats working under misaligned institutional mandates.
Qualitative interview study conducted with nurses working across prisons in Sweden to explore the conflict between healthcare delivery and carceral punishment.
Nurses experience tactical powerlessness alongside novel spatial limitations imposed by the physical and institutional prison setting.
Alienating working conditions coexist with re-connecting processes fostered by high work autonomy, trust-based managerial distance, and supportive professional networks.
Policy alienation operates as a dynamic, context-mediated process rather than a static institutional state.