Hester Paanakker

that organizational managers from all levels enforce instrumental values of target-oriented and performance-induced managerial control at the expense of the attainment of the intrinsic and moral values of frontline professionals. Value Convergence and Mutual Perceptions Between Different Layers When comparing the value approaches of the different layers, the results specified that the divergence is mainly found in mutual, and stereotypical, perceptions. Interestingly, the actual views of the different groups are highly convergent: 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 shop floor” (i.e. quite strong convergence on value understanding ). Due to strong formal and informal socialization processes within the prison organization, the different organizational levels unanimously subscribe to the four contextual and profession-bound values of humanity, security, reintegration and task effectiveness. However, this finding of value convergence is not the image that penal actors (professionals, managers and policy makers alike) themselves have. The vast majority of respondents perceive divergence rather than convergence between the different levels, and particularly with respect to how values are prioritized and enacted in practice. In the eyes of these penal actors themselves, the four core values are primarily connected to frontline prison officers, and the widely held conviction is that managers and policy makers enshrine a value focus on efficiency (by means of severe, and severely undermining, cutbacks) and effectiveness in its connotation of rigid performance measurement and superficial output control. Irrespective of the exact position they hold, actors were found to enlarge role and value differences in a stereotypical fashion, into patterns of deeply toxic relationships. The result is a consistently biased believe that management above them prioritizes plain targets over the content and quality of good public service delivery. Here, public value divergence reflects a spectrum of penal values with two mostly clashing extremes: one the one hand, the instrumental values that support the organization (negative enactment of efficiency and effectiveness), and, on the other hand, the intrinsic values that serve policy clients, in this case prison inmates (humanity, security, reintegration, and task effectiveness). The higher up the hierarchy, the more managers are seen to restrict their value focus to instrumental values at the direct expense of (care for or attempts to safeguard) intrinsic 201 Summary in English