Autonomy in Prison: Street-Level Bureaucrats Re-Connecting with Their Purpose

Abstract

Policy alienation research highlights how public professionals experience powerlessness and meaninglessness when policies misalign with their professional values and work context. While previous research conceptualizes policy alienation as a largely static condition, this article advances a processual understanding by examining how organizational context shapes its development. Drawing on interviews with nurses working in Swedish prisons—a paradigmatic case of misalignment between care and punishment—the study reveals that both expected (tactical powerlessness) and novel (spatial limitation) patterns of alienation coexist with processes that counteract it. Nurses describe how they re-connect with their primary policy domain through considerable work autonomy, trust-based managerial distance, and supportive professional networks. These findings extend policy alienation theory by demonstrating how misaligned organizational environments can generate both alienating and re-connecting processes. The study thus advances understanding of policy alienation as a dynamic, context-mediated phenomenon with important implications for public administration practice.