Hester Paanakker

199 SUMMARY IN ENGLISH VALUE DIVERGENCE Introduction and Background The important role of public values in the design and implementation of public service delivery is undisputed. However, the study into such values is often restricted to a set of fixed and very abstract principles. It remains unclear what the concrete role, meaning and enactment of public values is in administrative practice. This renders a blind spot, especially with respect to hands- on frontline professions, such as police officers, teachers, or nurses. Exactly how do public values relate to craftsmanship at the frontline of public service delivery? To what extent do frontline professionals, their direct supervisors, their higher management, and policy makers share a common understanding and evaluation of values of frontline craftsmanship in their sector? And how does that affect the quality of public service delivery, and the professionals employed at the shop floor? This thesis examines these central questions within the Dutch prison sector. The primary role of the prison sector is to reduce recidivism and to contribute to a safe society. Despite the societal relevance of this role, what prison personnel does and how they do it is largely shielded from the outside world. But prison officers are true professionals who enact a multitude of –often inherently conflicting- public values in highly demanding contexts. In the Dutch model, prison officers are granted a high level of discretionary power and perform a range of different psychological, social and administrative tasks of detainee care. Therefore, it is of crucial importance how prison officers safeguard public values within the context of their craftsmanship, and to what extent this is impacted by the value convergence, or value divergence, in their sector. The research is guided by the following research question: How convergent are public officials’ value approaches toward the street-level craft in the Dutch prison sector, and in what way does value convergence or divergence affect administrative practice? The research was conducted in two correctional facilities for adult males. Data collection consisted of a period of extensive participatory field observation, document analysis, and 55 in- depth interviews with 32 frontline prison officers, nine prison middle managers, eight members 199