Penal Populism, Prison and Performance Measures: Autoethnography of a New Zealand Corrections Officer

Abstract

This autoethnography outlines contradictions in offender rehabilitation policies that were apparent to me while I was employed as a Corrections officer at a New Zealand prison. I ponder the social, political and cultural barriers to reducing the prison population by story-lining three intersecting topics: contemporary prisoner and officer relations, the goal of reducing reoffending, and the long shadow of (post-)colonialism. I provide analysis of these topics, drawing on both my positionality as a former officer, and my subsequent reflections as a social science academic. I conclude by noting that crime and punishment in New Zealand are salient political issues, and that advocates of progressive penal policies ought to be prepared for more authoritarian attitudes to criminal justice re-emerging in the political discourse.