“Prison Officers Should Be Treated Fairly”. Perceptions and Experiences of Fairness Among Prison Officers in Ghana

Aristotle argued that we can learn about justice by examining its opposite: injustice. As he posited, “[o]ften one of a pair of contrary states is recognized from the other contrary” (1999: 67). In this chapter, I capture the perception and experiences of fairness among prison officers in Ghana. Officers experienced feelings of injustice mainly through management practices such as the allocation of promotions, educational and career development opportunities, transfers, participation in UN Peacekeeping missions, and punishment for wrongdoing. The data from semi-structured interviews further shows that while distributive and procedural injustice appears important to prison officers, distributive injustice is often the lens through which officers assessed procedural injustice. I argue further that prison officers are markedly similar to prisoners in their demand for voice, respect, and equality in the allocation of organisational incentives and disincentives.