‘… They’ve Got an Axe to Grind’: Prison Managers, Soft Performance Monitoring and Managerialism

Abstract

This is the second of two chapters to focus on performance management. Chapter 5 considered more quantitative, ‘hard’ measures, in particular KPTs and audits. This second chapter focuses on ‘soft’ mea­sures, in other words those that are externally designed and conducted, are concerned with ‘societal’ rather than ‘institutional’ risk, draw more directly upon the direct experience of prisoners, and deploy a set of methodologies that a more qualitative, engaging with structured pro­fessional judgement. These measures included assessments conducted by Independent Monitoring Board (IMB), HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) and Measuring the quality of prison life (MQPL). These will all be discussed in more detail below.