Moral shocks and small wins: Encouraging firms based in liberal societies to behave integratively towards former prisoners. (October 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Burns, Prue; Nyland, Chris; Cooney, Richard; Schapper, Jan
• Is Part Of: Punishment & society. Volume 19:Number 4(2017)
• Page Start: 417
• Page End: 439
• Publication Date: 2017-10
• Subjects: employer attitudes -- ex-offenders -- ex-prisoners -- liberal individualism -- liberalism -- neoinstitutionalism -- new institutionalism -- prisoner re-entry -- prisoner reintegration; Punishment -- Periodicals; Punishment -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Crime -- Sociological aspects -- Periodicals; 364.605
• DOI: 10.1177/1462474516662879
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1462-4745

Abstract

In this article, we contend that employers' willingness to provide former prisoners with integrative forms of employment is related to the extent to which liberal societies abstract, idealise and prioritise the interests of the self over the interests of society. Using the United States of America as a critical case to illustrate this argument, we unite the neoinstitutional sociology of organisations with Weick's small wins approach to problem solving to show how an especially individualistic embodiment of liberalism contributes to the construction of a social and institutional reality that discourages firms from behaving integratively towards former prisoners. In so doing, we produce a conceptual framework that points to ways by which the scarcity of integrative firms within individualist liberal societies might be addressed.