Prison Officer Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to give a detailed, comprehensive analysis of the life and role of the correctional officer. When society, as a whole, is in discussion of the career of a correctional officer, most of the images that spring to mind are that these employees of the correctional enterprise are solely in charge of keeping order in America's prisons. While this is indeed true, there is undoubtedly more to the life of the prison guard than meets the eye. In the foregoing paragraphs, I will try to best give a detailed description of the life of the ever-important figure in corrections: the prison guard. In order to understand how issues arise in the practice of corrections, it is necessary to understand the experience of prison guarding.
In essence, "corruption of authority" refers to a practice by guards of deliberately refraining from enforcing prison rules and regulations. Contrasting police and prison guards' use of discretion, Lombardo (1989) notes that when a policeman decides whether and how to enforce the law, this decision is considered an exercise of his or her discretion. However, when a guard decides when and how to enforce rules, his or her decision is constructed as an exercise in corruption of authority. This is because that deciding not to enforce the rules is perceived by guards as necessary to gain inmate cooperation, and is a reflection of the guards' relative powerlessness. Both decisions are exercised with discretion, but the police action is cast in positive terms, while the guards' decision is cast in negative terms. By the guards' discretion being viewed in a negative light, it reflects that the general perception of guard work being distasteful, unrewarding, and of low, non-professional status. Crouch and Marquart (1980) summarize two other forms of potential corruption. The first is the loss of authority that may arise when guards become too friendly with inmates, and fail to maintain the required social distance, sentiments echoed by Robert Johnson. This may be particularly prevalent with new recruits when the new
In one case, an affair between an officer and inmate was discovered, when the inmate used the officer's phone card to call the correctional employee while she was on vacation. In another case, an officer assaulted a co-worker on duty over a gambling debt, and it transpired that the officer, who was subjected to the assault, was in fact, a bookie employed by a major organized crime figure. Officers also have been arrested for smuggling heroin into a prison for inmates, arrested for bookmaking, and another has been arrested for attempting to transport marijuana into a