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Golfing with a murderer-Professional indifference and identity work in a Danish prison

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Author

  • Jeanette Lemmergaard
  • Sara Louise Muhr

Summary, in English

Employees often use dis-identification strategies such as humor or cynicism to cope with emotional difficulties at work. In this paper, we show how dis-identification collapses among Danish correctional officers because of specific emotional contradictions arising from the 'dirty' aspects of their work. Correctional officers face the emotional dilemma of having to both get involved with the inmates to rehabilitate them and be suspicious of them to maintain security. At the same time, they have to deal with the stigma of their job and cannot easily vent their emotional experiences with outsiders. It therefore becomes difficult to uphold a positive and coherent sense of self. In order to maintain a dignified sense of self and a positive attitude towards work correctional officers construct a space of professional indifference. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

185-195

Publication/Series

Scandinavian Journal of Management

Volume

28

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • Correctional officers
  • Dirty work
  • Dis-identification
  • Emotion labor
  • Identity work
  • Professional indifference

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0956-5221