Hester Paanakker

Overall, existing formally developed institutional measures to aid the manifestation of key penal values are not considered as playing any significant role in the expression of the craftsmanship ideals that prison officers subscribe to. Perception of the facilitation of penal craftsmanship in institutional practice characterizes the current policy vision negatively, together with the corresponding institutional context of the organization. The dominant perception is that the presence of a vast range of institutional impediments together form a highly restraining environment for the advancement of penal craftsmanship. 3.9 Discussion Extending the importance of these findings beyond the prison context and taking into account their limitations, several valuable lessons for the advancement of public values research and praxis can be taken from the above analysis and can further our understanding of what public craftsmanship is about. First, conceptualizing public craftsmanship as the way concrete professional skills and institutional practices tie in with overarching values proves to be a useful and parsimonious tool in bringing to the surface the values that matter to frontline officials in street level practice. This also reveals how, through lived experiences, those values acquire practical meaning in specific professional settings. Methodologically, such bottom-up examination of “doing the job well” enacts the observation that aspirational values associated with “doing good” are always contextual (Rutgers, 2015). It offers a built-in contextuality that allows respondents to speak in their own professional jargon and helps them to more easily articulate what matters to them normatively. Of course, some values such as humanity and security may be transferrable to other service sectors with a comparable service type, such as field military personnel, street level police officers or paramedics, but the distinct skills and practices described to enact these values will differ significantly from the reality and logic of the penal system. For public values research, it clearly indicates the added value of a craftsmanship perspective and underlines the importance of examining values, and value attainment, in the context of the workplace and through the eyes of the people on the shop floor. 85 Mismatch Between Ideals and Institutional Facilitation