Bridging the Gap? Ex-Military Personnel and Military–Civilian Transition Within the Prison Workforce

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X211039879
• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X20917183

Article

1134644AFSXXX10.1177/0095327X20917183Armed Forces & SocietyLevy

research-article2022

Bridging the Gap? Ex-Military

Personnel and Military–

Civilian Transition Within

the Prison Workforce

Jennifer Turner

1

and Dominique Moran

2

Abstract

Prior research into military–civilian transition has suggested that the Prison Service may

be a popular destination for Armed Forces leavers, but the experience of former

military personnel within the prison system as prison staff (rather than as Veterans in

Custody) has so far been overlooked. As a result, we know very little about their route

into prison work. This article reports on a UK study investigating the experience of

prison personnel who have previously served in the military and presents the f‌irst set of

empirical evidence addressing these critical questions. Whilst our f‌indings mirror

prevailing assumptions of a relatively seamless transition to post-military careers (and,

in particular, those within Protective Service Occupations), few had intended a career

in prison work specif‌ically. Such trajectories may inf‌luence personal military–civilian

transitions, as well as job performance in prison work and, by extension, the everyday

lives of prisoners and other prison staff.

Keywords

veterans, military culture, prisons, prison staff, armed forces leavers

1

Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Carl von Ossietzky Universit¨

at Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

2

University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Corresponding Author:

Jennifer Turner, Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Carl von Ossietzky Universit¨

at Oldenburg, Ammerlander

Heerstr. 114-118, Oldenburg 26111, Germany.

Email: jennifer.turner@uni-oldenburg.de

Armed Forces & Society

2023, Vol. 49(1) 70 –90

© The Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X211039879

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Turner and Moran 71

Military personnel experience a multitude of ‘transitions’during their military career,

such as change in job role, deployment overseas or promotion to higher ranks. The most

signif‌icant transition for many, however,is the return to civilian life and, in particula r,to

civilian employment. Most ex-military personnel who are physically and mentally well

go on to have second careers. They transition relatively seamlessly and require no

assistance with aspects of unemployment, debt, homelessness, relationship breakdown

or poor health (Ashcroft, 2014;Walker, 2013). Nevertheless, whether leaving is pre-

planned (such as at the end of a service contract) or unexpected (through ill health or

dismissal), military experience inevitably inf‌luences the subsequent evolution of post-

military identities (Cowen, 2005;Riley & Bateman, 1987;Walker, 2018). Although

‘pathologising’military–civilian transition risks positioning military experience as an

aff‌liction from which individuals need ‘rehabilitation’, even those ‘successfully’

transitioning face ‘signif‌icant cultural, social and spatial changes’and perform liminal

identities via the ‘legacies’of military service (Herman & Yarwood, 2014, pp. 41–42, p.

49).

These circumstances are well known. Wide-ranging research tracks the post-military

careers of personnel leaving the armed forces, including various studies of specif‌ic

destination professions. Research into post-military careers has tracked former military

personnel into teaching (Gordon & Newby Parham, 2019;Robertson & Brott, 2013);

police work (Ivie & Garland, 2011;Johnson, 2013;Olson & Gabriel-Olson, 2012;

Patterson, 2002); the f‌ire service (Bartlett et al., 2020); corporate careers (Benmelech &

Frydman, 2015;Gagliardo, 2020;Kaur & Singh, 2018;Koch-Bayram & Wernicke,

2018); and entrepreneurship (Heinz et al., 2017;Kerrick et al., 2014). Across these and

other studies, researchers f‌ind that military experience is to some extent predictive of

professional performance, being variously associated with more conservative and

ethical behaviour in business, better management of occupational stress, high levels of

resilience and, in teaching, a greater likelihood of remaining in the profession compared

to conventionally–trained teachers. Accordingly, these insights are expanding our

understanding of military–civilian transition and post-military careers. However, one

signif‌icant workplace –the prison –has thus far escaped the attention of researchers.

Despite a now extensive body of research into prison staff and prison management,

we know very little about ex-military prison staff and their transition to the Prison

Service. This is surprising given that new research (Moran & Turner, forthcoming)

suggests that historically ex-military personnel have comprised up to 75% of the prison

off‌icer workforce. In England and Wales, a key report published by HMIP in 2014

found that former military personnel constituted 7% of the prisoner population (HMIP,

2014) where they are often termed ‘Veterans in Custody’or VICs. This much-cited

statistic justif‌iably underpinned extensive subsequent research related to this cohort

(e.g. Albertson et al., 2017;Fossey et al., 2017;MacManus & Wood, 2017;Phillips,

2020). Whilst we do not suggest that VICs are undeserving of the considerable research

attention they have attracted, this percentage is self-evidently only a fraction of that

constituted by ex-military prison off‌icers within their own workforce. In addition,

without some sense of the possible patterns in the prof‌iles and experiences for former

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