Hester Paanakker

7.1.2 Part 2: Value Convergence and Mutual Perceptions Between Different Levels Second, in part 2, the thesis explored value convergence between the different penal sector layers: street-level implementation, organizational management, and policy formulation. This addresses the second research question: To what degree are prison officers’ views on street- level craftsmanship convergent with the views on street-level craftsmanship of prison middle management, prison management, and penal policy officials, and what explains their mutual perceptions? This section of the thesis confirmed and further developed the notion of divergence that the findings among prison officers hinted at. In particular, the results in the second section specified that the divergence is mainly found in mutual perceptions. Interestingly, the actual views on the values that are considered important to frontline craftsmanship proved to be highly convergent, at least in terms of the contextual and profession-bound identification of humanity, security, reintegration, and task effectiveness. Due to strong formal and informal socialization processes, actors at street-level, managerial, and policy levels have very similar views on which values matter (i.e. strong convergence on value identification) and broadly speaking also on how the values relate to specific skills and knowledge “on the floor” (i.e. quite strong convergence on value understanding). At least for the prison sector, this signals a remarkably high commonality in value interpretation within public professions and their policy domains. Yet, even though it is not supported by the value patterns respondents actually put forward, the vast majority of respondents perceive divergence rather than convergence between the different levels. In their mutual perception of each other’s value approaches to frontline craftsmanship, actors enlarge role and value differences in a stereotypical fashion and lay the source of the divergence in value prioritization and enactment. In addition, there is a high degree of divergence on value understanding with respect to the value “task effectiveness”: in the mutual perceptions, its positive connotation of “getting things done” changes to a range of different negative connotations of managerial self-preservation, suppression, control, and a distorting number focus. In the mutual perceptions, immense differences arise. A focus on the key public service values of humanity, security, reintegration, and task effectiveness is perceived only in the personal 164 Chapter 7