Hester Paanakker

for example, policy advisors were asked to reflect on the craftsmanship views of middle managers, prison managers, and prison officers respectively. To avoid value bias and to prevent too high a level of abstraction for respondents, specific values were not asked for and the word “values” was excluded from interview questions all together. Instead, we collected detailed stories on what frontline craft is about, as expressed and understood by respondents themselves. From the bottom-up analysis of the concrete skills, knowledge and practices that respondents attach to frontline craft, we inductively inferred value patterns, and compared them between respondent(group)s on the types of ideal values identified (value identification), the meaning attached to these values (value understanding) and what emphasis was put on these values in practice, and how (value prioritization or enactment). Hence, values were coded into the data in the analysis stage. The data analysis consisted of a systematic content analysis through software-supported (MAXQDA) coding: a process of attaching distinct labels to data segments to organize, classify and conceptualize the interview material (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Using two-stage coding to build categories from the bottom up , in the first stage the initially open codes were combined in data segments with similar content to produce mutually-exclusive codes and create a methodological hierarchical coding system (Friese, 2012, pp. 130-131) that reflects the heterogeneity and variance of the concrete skills, knowledge and practices that respondents attach to the penal craft on the ground. Examples of such concrete qualities include “treating and approaching detainees with empathy (being sympathetic to moods and behavior resulting from stress and personal problems)” and “changing mindset and behavior of detainee during detention”, or concrete characterizations of craft restrictions, such as “cutbacks” and “number obsession and a focus on box ticking”. Table 4.1. The subcategories of concrete craft-related skills, knowledge and practices per value The concrete skills, knowledge and practices on the bases of which the value categories are built Main value Sub codes: the skills, knowledge and practices that define craft 103 Comparing Perceptions of the Frontline Craft