Exploring why prison officers leave His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and the processes and trajectories involved in returning to ‘civilian life’, this book examines the reasons that prison officers want to leave HMPPS and how they transition back to ‘civvy street’.

As well as presenting qualitative data from interviews with ex-prison officers, the authors also draw analytically on their ‘insider’ positionality to offer insights on the lived experience of prison officers both in the role and on their subsequent departure from the service. In doing so, they identify the rewards and challenges of working in a prison environment, while using Ebaugh’s (1988) four-stage model of role exit as a theoretical framework to help understand the process of leaving the prison service. Among the issues addressed are the impact of austerity, the Voluntary Early Departure Scheme, the decline in transmission of knowledge (‘jail craft’) to new recruits, high staff turnover, increased violence and the impact of COVID-19. These are counterbalanced by an exposition of what ex-prison officers recall positively about their time in service, such as loyalty, support, solidarity and pride in the uniform and helping prisoners with their custodial lives. The authors also put forward practical recommendations for ways in which HMPPS could encourage prison officers to stay in post for longer.

Providing authentic insights into the role of ex-prison officers, this book is ideal reading for students and academics of criminology, penology, criminal justice, sociology and criminal psychology. It will also be of interest to criminal justice practitioners and organisations such as Unlocked Graduates, the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prison Reform Trust.

Sarah Nixon is a senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Winchester, UK. Her research interests include desistance and peer support programmes in prison and community settings; the impact of desistance education on the working practices of prison officers; and autoethnographic research on being a gay female prison officer and experiences with suicide/self-harm and trauma. Sarah previously worked as a prison officer for six years at a Category B adult male prison in England and is a member of the Prison Research Network and the Pracademic Network in conjunction with De Montfort University.

Darren Woodward is a lecturer in criminology at Arden University, UK. His research explores desistance from crime, prisons, and the experiences of people involved in criminal justice. Before entering academia, Darren spent 17 years as a prison officer, working at two large prisons in England in various capacities, including landing officer, offender supervisor, and offending behaviour facilitator. Darren is also a member of the Pracademic Network in conjunction with De Montfort University.