‘Friendly but not Friends’ or ‘Never Trust the Bastards’? Staff-Prisoner Interaction Styles in Australia and Norway

In this chapter, (Tait in Eur J Criminol 8:440–454, 2011) typology of how prison officers interact with prisoners will be applied with the aim of exploring staff-prisoner interaction in Australia and Norway. Based on interviews with 130 prison officers across fourteen prisons in the two countries, the chapter adds detail and nuance to current understandings of Anglophone penal excess and Nordic exceptionalism in practice, by analysing the day-to-day interactions between officers and prisoners. I argue that the different interaction styles across the two countries result from different approaches to security and control, which in turn are underpinned by the overarching aims of imprisonment in the two nations. Importantly, by understanding different interaction styles, prison management has the potential to influence them, which can have a positive impact on the overall safety and security of the prison, prisoner rehabilitation prospects, and staff well-being.