Carceral statecraft in crisis: Symbolic resilience and the erosion of accountability

This article introduces 'symbolic resilience' to explain how governments maintain the appearance of control during crises while limiting culpability. Using 44 interviews with senior prison policymakers and stakeholders, the article analyses prison governance in England and Wales during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that key decisions – adoption of a highly centralised 'gold command' structure, limited early release, and prioritisation of infection metrics – formed a governing strategy that narrowed the criteria through which policy success was evaluated while sustaining claims of effective crisis management. Combining neo-statecraft with insights from agnotology (organised production and management of 'not knowing'), the analysis demonstrates how evidentiary practices and restricted participation in decision-making reduced ministers’ exposure to blame while shifting responsibility onto senior officials. Symbolic resilience provides a framework for understanding how crisis governance narrows evaluative criteria of policy success, thereby enabling governments seemingly to maintain effective control while welfare harms become institutionally marginalised within official policy evaluation.