Exploring Differing Staff Cultures in Five Closed English Male Prisons and Their Impact on Substance Misuse and Recovery

The main aim of the research was to identify the organisational culture factors associated with prisons with high substance misuse and factors associated with prisons with low substance misuse and what impact prison culture has on substance treatment and recovery. The concepts of culture in organisations studies and in academic literature cover a broad range of definitions, research methods and results. When organisations and government departments set out to understand what makes their organisations unique and effective, they often begin from a position that managers can improve efficiency and effectiveness by understanding staff. Research studies have increasingly looked at the behaviour, beliefs, and values of staff as control levers to improve performance and create positive experiences for those who use the service or work there.
The culture in which clinical treatment services deliver those services have been identified as key factors associated with an improved therapeutic environment and positive outcomes. In a prison setting, there is the added complication that services are delivered within a hierarchical and structural organisational culture, with its own unique traditions, customs, symbols, language, and priorities. Defining and then measuring culture and characteristics such as a ‘social climate’ within clinical and prison environmental settings has proved problematic. This is primarily due to the vague nature of the concept itself and, as outlined in the literature review, alongside the ambiguity between definitions of culture. Research had predominantly explored the two concepts separately, using separate methods.
This study used culture as the main theme and climate as the sub domain and a characteristic of culture. The assumptions, beliefs and values that form organisational culture have been studied in a healthcare setting but not in English prisons. This thesis sets out to study this concept in English prisons settings.