Hester Paanakker

may lead to enforced rather than actual value differences, and, in practice, to a gap between beliefs and demands. Finally, the third part confirmed several of the propositions derived from the results in earlier chapters about the problems that value divergence creates. It shed light on how the divergence can result in a state of organizational paralysis within prison facilities, with street-level workers working at one end of the spectrum of intrinsic values that serve prison inmates, and managers from organizational and policy level at the other. This shows value divergence to lead to ineffective governance, with prison officers having to rearrange their work routines to the detriment of realizing key values of penal service delivery. Concrete frontline implementation problems include workplace rotation, lack of time, lack of room to create the necessary bond with prison inmates, systems and tools that are inadequate to safeguard intrinsic values, and an enforced box-ticking mentality. They all function to undermine support of the detainee (humanity), minimizing tensions, aggression and violence (security), the rehabilitation of inmates (reintegration) and effective street-level administrative and organizational tasks (task effectiveness) being put center stage. Hence these implementation problems function to undermine the frontline craft as well as (the quality of) public service delivery in general. Moreover, value divergence is shown to lead to (the aggravation of) job stress, job alienation, frustration with the organization, and general policy alienation. Contrary to the expectations, and despite its overall negative impact on street-level service delivery, value divergence is found to lead relatively few prison officers to experience moral dilemmas (less than one-third). The two distinct coping strategies that the thesis puts forth explaining how prison officers either circumvent the negative impact of value divergence through their bureaucratic flexibility, or ignore the existence of the value divergence altogether through cognitive distancing, may prove useful in explaining the moral impact of value divergence on street-level professions throughout the public sector. 7.1.4 In Conclusion I will now return to the central research question of how convergent public officials’ value approaches are toward street-level craft in the Dutch prison sector, and in what way value convergence or divergence affects administrative practice? In response to the first half of this 167 Conclusions and Discussion