The Psychosocial Impact of Prison Culture on Black Women Employees

This article discusses the effect of organisational culture on black women Prison Service employees’ psychosocial experience, and examines how the specificities of prison culture(s) affects this employee group.
The author examines how black women as gendered and racialised subjects experience mistrust and suspicion, because of their gender and racial minority status within the British Prison Service. It is suggested that a white masculine culture exists because of the dominant group that comprise white men. This may cause the majority group to intentionally/unintentionally exclude black women because feelings of trust and shared understanding are greater when there is more similarity among group members. In addition, organisational pressures may also lead to the exclusion of black women. The author asserts that black women’s work experience is multi-dimensional and complex because their lives are shaped by social categories such as gender and race. She provides an insight into the internal and external world of the participants, taking into account components such as expectations, subjectivity, culture and anxiety to examine the individual’s experience within their work environment, by applying an organisational psychodynamic framework, as well as highlight the dynamics of the British Prison Service.
The narratives of three black women Prison Service employees are used as examples to show how individuals’ subjectivity can be influenced by their interaction within the social world as members of a group marginalised because of their gendered racialisation.