‘It’s a Very Clannish Type of a Job’: Entitativity and Identity in Prison Officers’ Occupational Cultures and Identities

Occupational cultures are the primary psychosocial interpretative lenses through which prison officers think, feel and perceive their working lives. Identity for prison officers relies on the sense that theirs is a unique and distinct group that merits its own perspectives and behaviours. Accounting for prison officers’ characterisation of their occupational groups as ‘clannish’ (‘Clannish’ is defined in one sense as being of a clan with ‘clan’ meaning family or community. However, in Ireland and neighbouring jurisdictions, ‘clannish’ tends to be used as a derogatory term for members of a group or community that are friendly to each other or other members but not to those outside of the group. Thus, more than being close-knit, it carries an exclusionary dynamic.)—‘friendly to each other, but not to people outside the group’ (McIntosh, n.d.: Online)—requires examination of their group conceptualisation within their occupational cultures and identities. To do so, in this chapter, I examine the role of ‘entitativity’ in shaping and perpetuating prison officers’ occupational identities and cultures. Entitativity is defined as the perception of a group as a pure entity and perceiving a collective of individuals characterised by unity and coherence. This innovative analysis reveals that the aggregate of individual officers is perceived as representing a discrete and coherent group. Integrated into their occupational cultures, these perceptions are based on eight specific cues whose intensity elevates officers to the highest level of entitativity in ‘intimacy groups’ (typically family, very close friends). Thus, prison officer identities have a familial quality bound by enforced or inadvertent kinship ties. Applying this framework, I advance analyses of perceived traditional features of prison work such as solidarity and conformity in prison officers’ occupational cultures. Drawing on findings from the first comprehensive study of prison officers’ occupational cultures and identities in the Republic of Ireland, in the chapter, I provide original perspectives to prison literature on a critically important yet often overlooked dimension of prison life. The findings derive from the ethnographic components of a mixed methods study comprising 14 months in four prisons including 76 interviews with officers of all ranks. I argue a deeper consideration of prison officers’ occupational cultures is imperative to grasp and address the challenges and experiences of those confined and working in prisons. The application of these findings has implications for policymakers and prison scholars, informing recommendations and proposals for further research.