Abstract
Information records play a highly significant role in correctional settings. One scholar has referred to the “supremacy that information has within the prison system” (McIlwain 2004: 254). This system dependence has grown greater as bureaucracy has intensified and psychological risk-management principles have come to play a greater part in institutional life (Crewe 2011b). The significance of written reports and other information collected by officers lies largely in their constitutive character—how information that enters the official record comes to represent, correctly or incorrectly, the identity/character of the prisoner (or probationer or parolee) for a variety of system decisions, including classification for accommodation purposes, as well as access to programs and to health-related treatment. How this information is shaped, in short, has material, and potentially prejudicial, consequences in the lives of correctional clients, and thus creates conditions for integrity breaches (see Ruppert 2013).
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Goldsmith, A., Halsey, M., Groves, A. (2016). Inappropriate Dealing with Client Information. In: Tackling Correctional Corruption. Crime Prevention and Security Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49007-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49007-0_6
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