Hester Paanakker

called harmony values are as essential – if not even more so – as security values, and relate to human dignity, respect, fairness and trust in detainee-employee interaction and relationships, as well as to detainees’ personal support and development (see also Molleman & van Ginneken, 2015). They state that striking a balance between two such inherently different values, no matter how complicated, is the ultimate key to ensuring quality in prison performance (Liebling & Arnold, 2004, p. 442), and hence constitutes penal craftsmanship. Others, still, argue that rehabilitation of the offender has been part of the Western penal system for over a century, often as part of a humane form of punishment (Craig, 2004; Molleman, 2014). These three goals or values are also explicitly incorporated in the mission of the Dutch prison system, which reads: ‘We ensure a safe and humane detention and work with our adjacent organizations and the inmate, towards reintegration’ (Dutch Correctional Agency, 2009c). If, and how, Dutch prison officers mirror these abstract values in their views on craftsmanship is unknown. Scientific studies on the real-life role of prison officers in the United States or the United Kingdom, for instance, produce long lists of required competences that indirectly reflect on craftsmanship in the penal domain (Gilbert, 1997; Liebling et al., 2010). They underline how much of prison work is about operating routines effectively, how prison officers share characteristics such as being resourceful, loyal, self-confident and proud, how complex it is to cater to the needs of a highly unpredictable group of beneficiaries, and how utterly important is the ability to balance security and discipline on the one hand and highly developed people-skills on the other (Liebling et al., 2010). Peacekeeping seems to be a recurring characteristic of penal craftsmanship: ‘Being a good prison officer involves being good at not using force but still getting things done, and being prepared to use the various power bases officers can draw on when necessary’ (Liebling et al., 2010, p. 205). 2.6 Research Methods and Analysis To allow for in depth qualitative analysis of the way public craftsmanship is subjectively understood and characterized, we incorporate the results of semi-structured interviewing in a case study among Dutch prison officers ( N =18). Because of the closed setting of detention facilities (which, in Goffman’s (1968) words, would be characterized as total institutions), this research concerns a very specific and homogenous group of professionals. They are also public professionals, since all detention facilities in the Netherlands are fully publicly run. Respondents were working in the same penal facility in Amsterdam, the capital, with identical job descriptions (running the daily detainee programs and taking care of the detainees) and 45 Craftsmanship at Street Level