Hester Paanakker

With a total of 55 in-depth interviews with policy makers, managing directors, middle managers, and street-level prison officers in the Dutch prison sector, this study offers a unique insight into differences and similarities in value perceptions of craftsmanship from the policy- making level to street-level execution. The Dutch prison sector provides an exemplary case study because street-level prison work in the Netherlands qualifies as a craft pur sang: unlike in many other countries, the position of prison officers is not one of minimal commitment to providing basic security . Dutch prison officers perform a variety of highly complex tasks in terms of social safety, and detainee care, welfare, mentoring and reintegration, and obtain a high level of professionalism and discretion in their work (Molleman, 2014). Moreover, as it implements a comprehensive new policy program while at the same time closing down facilities and applying other severe austerity measures, the Dutch prison system provides an interesting context of organizational change, in which (the renegotiation of) values of good work explicitly surface (Stewart, 2006). In the sections to come, we discuss competing expectations of convergence and divergence based on a literature review of value understandings and group dynamics (specifically, literature on professional socialization, role differences and normative isomorphism). From empirical findings of perceived rather than actual divergence between staff levels, further insights are derived on conflicting value sets, trans-positional bias, toxic stereotyping, and the exacerbating influence of cutbacks and reforms, the latter found to cause the glorification of quantifiable managerialism and the externalization of content – at the expense of street-level values. 4.2 Value Understandings and Dissemination To study how different public sector levels may perceive frontline values similarly or differently, it is key to assess how values disseminate throughout a given group of actors. Insightful studies include studies on value attainment and value dilemmas in specific sectors such as hospitals and public transport (e.g. De Graaf et al., 2016; Jaspers & Steen, 2019; Oldenhof et al., 2014; Reynaers & Paanakker, 2016; Steenhuisen, 2009). The latter set of studies show the unique mix of values that play a role in specific professions, and how the meaning of values of a more general nature is transformed to fit the specific professional context. Reynaers and Paanakker, for instance, demonstrate how role differences may be determinative for value understanding: their study in the prison sector outlines how public 96 Chapter 4