Mennicken, Andrea 
ORCID: 0000-0002-5658-7678
(2013)
Too big to fail and too big to succeed: accounting and privatisation in the Prison Service of England and Wales.
Financial Accountability and Management, 29 (2).
pp. 206-226.
ISSN 0267-4424
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Abstract
This paper is concerned with the challenges involved in the transformation of the prison into a performance-oriented accounting entity. It examines the implication of private sector accounting and consulting expertise in redefining prison values and prison performance, and it discusses the consequences this had for definitions of risk and responsibility. The paper shows how the reforms promoted a systemic decentring of Prison Service accountability. Prison managers and regulators came to be inserted into hierarchies of expertise and credibility shaped by quests for commensuration and auditability. Further, the paper shows how the reform attempts brought about a situation of institutional lock-in by contributing, as the outgoing HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers has put it in 2010, to the creation of an inflated prison system ‘too big to fail, and too big to succeed'.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28... |
| Additional Information: | © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. |
| Divisions: | Accounting |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5601 Accounting H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Apr 2013 10:30 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Dec 2024 00:19 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/46366 |
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