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Prisons are characterized by a hierarchical and antagonistic institutional culture. The processes of the managerial and work culture in violent organizations, such as the prison, incorporate an explicit focus on authority and compliance with rigid rules and procedures; in this context, difference attracts harassment and victimization. These processes also encompass the enactment of "ordinary" authority, the normalization of harassment, and the ways in which violence is embedded in routine conversations and explanations (Hearn, 1996: 55). Group relations can function to legitimize, socialize and reproduce the values and practices connected with violence (Morgan, 1987: 185). Thus a focus on peer group relations, between and within groups of officers and prisoners, is critical and may reveal that which we would rather not know: that the functioning of prisons may be actively and significantly counterproductive to their proclaimed task--the reduction of crime.In this article I present a juxtaposition of crime (as gendered) within the context of the prison (as gendered) and consider the implications for conventional responses to offender rehabilitation. In particular I highlight the intensely masculinist nature of the prison, this reflecting both structural factors associated with its organizational hierarchy and paramilitary traditions, and the broader cultural-interactional themes associated with occupational norms and gender-based stereotyping. Thus this article presents an analysis of the prison as a workplace and, specifically, as a sexualized workplace. As a parallel theme I discuss the issue of gendered crime, in particular the relationship between masculinity and offending. I propose, although crime and punishment are commonly perceived as distinct opposites, that they, in fact, rep-27
Prisons are characterized by a hierarchical and antagonistic institutional culture. The processes of the managerial and work culture in violent organizations, such as the prison, incorporate an explicit focus on authority and compliance with rigid rules and procedures; in this context, difference attracts harassment and victimization. These processes also encompass the enactment of "ordinary" authority, the normalization of harassment, and the ways in which violence is embedded in routine conversations and explanations (Hearn, 1996: 55). Group relations can function to legitimize, socialize and reproduce the values and practices connected with violence (Morgan, 1987: 185). Thus a focus on peer group relations, between and within groups of officers and prisoners, is critical and may reveal that which we would rather not know: that the functioning of prisons may be actively and significantly counterproductive to their proclaimed task--the reduction of crime.In this article I present a juxtaposition of crime (as gendered) within the context of the prison (as gendered) and consider the implications for conventional responses to offender rehabilitation. In particular I highlight the intensely masculinist nature of the prison, this reflecting both structural factors associated with its organizational hierarchy and paramilitary traditions, and the broader cultural-interactional themes associated with occupational norms and gender-based stereotyping. Thus this article presents an analysis of the prison as a workplace and, specifically, as a sexualized workplace. As a parallel theme I discuss the issue of gendered crime, in particular the relationship between masculinity and offending. I propose, although crime and punishment are commonly perceived as distinct opposites, that they, in fact, rep-27
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