This article presents a typology of prison officer approaches to caring for prisoners, based on qualitative fieldwork in one men’s and one women’s prison. Five distinct approaches were identified: true carer, limited carer, old school, conflicted and ‘damaged’. Officers with each caring style shared a particular view of prisoners as a group, and varied in their adherence to traditional prison officer cultural norms. Length of experience and gender were related to caring approach, as were work environment and experience of trauma. I argue that all prison officers contended with care in their work, and I consider the personal and institutional factors that shaped the quality of care for prisoners.
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