This chapter starts to set out the findings of the case study. It provides a description and an analysis of the influences on the visitors. The chapter examines the characteristics of the people who applied to become visitors, and the effects on their attitudes and behaviour of their orientation, training and experiences as visitors. How individuals form attitudes is heavily affected by power relationships. Chapter One noted the importance of exploring whether visitors were affected by the power of the police. This investigation is based on Lukes’ concept of three-dimensional power, which, operating in contexts where there is no overt conflict, stops demands being made, and conflicts arising, by controlling others’ thoughts and desires, and by keeping certain issues off the agenda. These outcomes can be achieved by the control of information and what is known as ‘socialisation’. This chapter investigates how socialisation enables the Police and Crime Commissioner and the police to achieve these outcomes in the context of custody visiting.

Socialisation

As sociologists use the term, socialisation is the process by which social interactions help people to learn the values, norms and beliefs of their culture. The process can be explained by Goffman's (1971) very influential theory that the individual, in dealing with the various situations encountered, plays various roles, like an actor on a stage in different dramas. An important component of Goffman's argument is that participants (or actors) accept the same definition of the situation in which each of them is playing a role, because acting out of place would cause embarrassment. How do new recruits to custody visiting find what the definition of their work is, and are stronger pressures than the desire to avoid embarrassment brought to bear on them to accept the definition? How do those pressures operate through the socialisation process? This chapter will set out the influences operating on new recruits to custody visiting, and show that they are likely to have caused almost all of them to learn and accept the definition of their work.

In later life the ‘workplace’ is one of the socialising forces (Giddens et al, 2014). The workplace is a setting where much significant socialisation takes place. People spend a lot of time there, both physically and virtually; it is where they meet others who are engaged in the same work, including their bosses; it is the setting for their employment and their careers.