Will I Have to Be Reborn? Collective Sensemaking of Stigma among White-Collar Inmates

Bibliographic Data

ID2374827
AuthorsNavdeep K Arora (0000-0002-6209-7800, University of Exeter), Navdeep Arora (University of Exeter), William S Harvey (0000-0002-8771-4000, Melbourne Business School, Australia), Thomas Roulet (0000-0002-9148-3743, University of Cambridge, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume39
Issue3
Pages551-573
Publication date2025-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueWork Employment and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0950-0170 • E-ISSN: 1469-8722
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/09500170241268391
OpenAlexW4401973842
LanguageEN
References cited61

We have a limited understanding of how individuals anticipate the experience of stigma, make sense of it as a group, and how such sensemaking trickles down to the individual level, especially for white-collar inmates who have experienced a drastic fall from grace. To address these issues, we draw on three waves of semi-structured interviews and focus group data with 70 inmates in a federal prison in the United States over a period of 16 months. Our findings reveal that following collective sensemaking, inmates use varying tactics to either select, borrow, contribute, reinforce, disguise or maintain the status quo, which variably impact on their perceptions of their ability to both reassure others of their soundness of character and adapt their professional identity. Our work contributes to the sociology of stigma and white-collar crime by showing how high-status professionals collectively prepare for stigmatization and implications for their individual responses to stigma

Collar · Criminology · Political science · Psychiatry · Public relations · Sensemaking · Sociology · Stigma (botany · White (mutation · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Engineering · Gender Studies · Homelessness and Social Issues · Psychology · Social Psychology