Pandemic and the Disruption of Managerialism

As the coronavirus pandemic swept across the world in 2020, prisons in England implemented a lockdown regime with restrictions continuing until 2022. The pandemic disrupted the structure of managerialism which had been built up in prisons over the previous two decades. Initially, the systems of monitoring were dismantled and managers had to operate with greater agency. As the threat from the pandemic receded, there was a process of ‘managerial clawback’ with the re-establishing of the managerial architecture as part of a ‘return to normality’. Yet this process was incomplete as the pandemic left complex problems in its wake that required a balance between central direction and local leadership. The emerging ‘new normal’ offers a mixed managerial economy that navigates a path between managerial control and local autonomy.