Gendering jail craft: Preparing graduate prison officers for the realities of women’s prisons in England and Wales

This study examines the professional identity development of graduate prison officers working in two women’s prisons in England following completion of Women’s Estate Specific Training (WEST). While the professionalisation of prison work has received growing attention, the gendered dynamics of working in the women’s estate and the impact of gender-informed training on graduate recruits’ experiences remain underexplored. Using a qualitative semi-longitudinal design, the research followed a cohort of Unlocked Graduate officers over 1 year, employing focus groups and semi-structured interviews to explore how they navigated the complexities of gendered custodial work, institutional culture and relational and emotional labour. Reflexive thematic analysis identified three interrelated themes. First, officers negotiated their professional identities amid tensions between their rehabilitative ideals and institutional constraints, often confronting conflicts between personal values and operational demands. Second, gender-informed training shaped approaches to relational and trauma-informed work, revealing both its potential to enhance care and its limitations within rigid institutional structures. Third, officers’ experiences highlighted the ways systemic, patriarchal and managerialist practices shaped the women’s estate, reproducing structural harms that positioned both women and staff as responsible for mitigating outcomes beyond their control. The findings demonstrate that while gender-responsivity offers conceptual progress, it risks reinforcing paternalism unless reimagined as a transformative critique. Graduate officers’ reflections show that professional identity in the women’s estate is not only shaped by training but by the ethical, critical and hopeful negotiation of structural injustice. The study underscores the need to move beyond gendered managerialism towards gendered justice, recognising prisons’ incapacity to meet women’s needs and challenging the burden of care placed on individual officers. By illuminating these dynamics, the research contributes to scholarship on prison officer professionalisation, gendered custodial work and the ethical and emotional labour of prison practice, offering both a mirror and a challenge to contemporary penal reform.