Moral Dilemmas of Dutch Prison Staff; a Thematic Overview from All Professional Disciplines

ABSTRACT

Prison staff face situations with conflicting interests and values. To strengthen craftsmanship Dutch prison staff reflected upon personal moral dilemmas during Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) sessions. This research aims to gain systematic insight into themes and moral dilemmas Dutch prison staff encounter. Evaluation-forms of 171 MCD-sessions were collected (N = 1065 MCD-participants, N = 171 MCD-facilitators) from 22 teams of different professional disciplines at 3 locations. Our qualitative thematic content analysis included 154 moral dilemmas. We noted the organizational level and professional disciplines the moral dilemmas related to, and how dilemmas were formulated. All professional disciplines within prison work show to encounter a wide range of moral dilemmas, which emerge in and between all organizational levels. “Security” and “cooperation” were frequently mentioned themes, while dilemmas relating to the rehabilitation of prisoners were underrepresented. Some formulations of moral dilemmas were based on frustrations toward colleagues or the organization, expressed “powerlessness” to change practice, or contained normative arguments instead of an open formulation. These insights call for structural facilitation of methods for prison staff to deal with moral dilemmas. Ethics Support Services (ESS), such as MCD-sessions, can be used to further strengthen the moral craftsmanship of prison staff.

KEYWORDS:

• Prisons
• jails

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all participants and MCD-facilitators involved in this research project for their openness and willingness to contribute, as well as the management teams of the selected research locations, the whole DCIA-organization, and their Training Institute for all their constructive cooperation. Furthermore, we thank the local project-coordinators of the DCIA-locations and our research-assistants for their crucial role in helping to process the data.

Author contributions

AS, WL, MS and AM participated in the local Steering Committees and organized supervision meetings for the involved MCD-facilitators. AS and WL collected the data, and with the help of research-assistants processed all evaluation forms into our dataset. AS, WL, MS and AM coded a pilot of cases. AS and WL coded the database of cases, with additional reflections by MS. AS, WL and MS participated in the analysis of the mind map, which AM and HV reviewed and approved. AS was responsible for drafting and revising the manuscript. MS, AM and HV participated in discussions about the analysis and results, contributed to writing and provided detailed feedback on the manuscript, and approved the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Stolper M., Molewijk B., Widdershoven G. (2016). Bioethics education in clinical settings: theory and practice of the dilemma method of moral case deliberation. BMC Med Ethics, Jul 22; 17(1):45. DOI: 10.1186/s12910-016-0125-1.

2. For DCIA we made a slight adjustment in this dilemma method. Together with the facilitators we decided to mainly focus on the formulation of a dilemma, instead of as well including a “moral question”.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency of the Ministry of Justice and Security in the Netherlands.