Social Conflict Between Corrections And Inmates

For over centuries, the only form of punishment and discouragement for humans is through the prison system. Because of this, these humans or inmates, are sentenced to spend a significant part of their life in a confined, small room. With that being said, the prison life can leave a remarkable toll on the inmates life in many different categories. The first and arguably most important comes in the form of mental health. Living in prison with have a great impact on the psychological part of your life. For example, The prison life is a very much different way of life than what us “normal” humans are accustomed to living in our society. Once that inmate takes their first step inside their new society, their whole mindset on how to live and communicate changes. The inmate’s psychological beliefs about what is right and wrong are in questioned as well as everything else they learned in the outside world. In a way, prison is a never ending mind game you are playing against yourself with no chance of wining. Other than the mental aspect of prison, family plays a very important role in an inmate’s sentence. Family can be the “make it or break it” deal for a lot of inmates. It is often said that “when a person gets sentenced to prison, the whole family serves the sentence.” Well, for many inmates that is the exact case. While that prisoner serves their time behind bars, their family is on the outside waiting in anticipation for their loved ones to be released. In a way, the families

The History of prisons goes through many eras. Many of these eras have a major impact on today’s prison system. The different was that the system worked and didn’t work really showed what was possibly and what should not be tried again. Each era tried to do something new are recreate something that had already been done by making changes to the way that they treated the inmates all the way to how they were housed and how much contact they had with one another. The different eras gave the present day prison system many great things to think about. Such as large capacity housing so you can properly use all the space in the prison and hold it to capacity. There is also the parole system that gives inmates a chance to work get out early and spend the rest of their sentence on the outside. These many great traits that the prison system today has all come from the hundreds of years of trial and error that occurred throughout the world.

The first thing that I found was intriguing was the importance of the on- the-job training officers which qualifies recruits to become regular officers. “A training officer named Hill, told us that our job would be usually difficult, because OJT’s irritate inmates. Inmates appreciate a consistent set of keepers, he explained; they don’t like having the rules enforced differently everyday. This comes to show that it will either make or break a correctional officer, given that they will have a difficult time dealing with inmates or they will have to work extra hard to keep the inmates in line. An interesting fact that Conover points out is that, “you’re going to learn, correctional officers that some things they taught you in the academy can get you killed” (Pg 99). While he spent time on the work force at Sing Sing, Conover came to realize that many other officers don’t follow the rules instructed at the academy. The academy is successful in teaching the future officers how the field of law works. However, the correctional officers in the facilities have to change the rules quite a bit, so that the inmates follow the instructions. An example of a negative aspect of the academy is that it teaches CO’s to not communicate with the inmates. But, sometimes that isn’t practical and instead, CO’s should create a relationship with the inmate so that they have a strong bond. Lastly, I

Conover’s purpose in writing this book not only to share his experience as a correctional officer but to also help readers get beyond the stereotype of the brutal guard seen on television and rumors but to see correctional officers as individuals, offering us a chance to understand

In 2011, I spent time serving in prisons with a church organization who’s goal was to change the systemic problems within the prison system. This caused me to examine all aspects of inequality and oppression that disproportionately affects people of color.

The prison system in England and Wales could reasonably be described as being in crisis. Discuss.

The United States prison system struggles eminently with keeping offenders out of prison after being released. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than third of all prisoners who were arrested within five years of released were arrested within six months after release, with more than half arrested by the end of the year (Hughes, Wilson, & Beck, 2001). Among prisoners released in 2005 in 23 states with available data on inmates returned to prison, about half (55 percent) had either a parole or probation violation or an arrest for a new offense within three years that led to imprisonment (Durose, Cooper, & Snyder, 2014). Why are there many ex-offenders going back to prison within the first five years of release? Are there not enough resources to help offenders before or/and after being released from prison.

At any given time, a single corrections officer, can expect to be outnumbered by upwards of 400 inmates (Conover, 2011). It can be chilling to work in the midst of hundreds of inmates, some of which initiate attacks and inappropriate relationships. However, other issues have impacted the psychological health and physical safety of the staff. Detrimental factors have included heavy workloads, the prisons physical structure, and a lack of support from both peers and superiors. Each workplace issue has been in addition to role problems, specifically role ambiguity and role conflict (Schaufeli & Peeters, 2011). It is believed that anyone of these undesirable facets of prison should be enough to deter the public from attempting to enter such

Within this paper, you will find a comprehensive review of the United States prison system, and why it needs to analyzed to better support and reform the people of this country. I plan to persuade the other side (politicians and society) into seeing that the way the prison system is now, is not ethical nor economical and it must change. We have one of the world’s largest prison population, but also a very high rate of recidivism. Recidivism is when the prisoners continuously return to prison without being reformed. They return for the same things that they were doing before. So, this leads us to ask what exactly are we doing wrong? When this happens, we as a nation must continuously pay to house and feed these inmates. The purpose of a prison needs to be examined so we can decide if we really are reforming our inmates, or just continuing a vicious cycle. What is the true purpose of prison besides just holding them in a cell? There must be more we can do for these hopeless members of society.

Nonetheless, I think that we all learned that when it comes to being a correction officer it can be very stressful. It is a job that is sometimes taken for granted, like teachers in a classroom. Students know that are to respect and follow directions, but they seem to want to do the opposite. Just as the prisoners in the book. They are the students in detention and the

If I was a prisoner warden and had to address racial tensions between inmates, I would start by figuring out who is part of which gang and who is not. Racial tension comes from groups who think they are better than others. After the inmates who are affiliated with gangs are grouped together I would then figure out who the leaders are and place them in confinement. I believe this would help solve racial tension because this strategy will break down the gangs. No new leaders would want to step up in fear that they would be put in confinement. I would then make sure that overcrowding is made a priority, less overcrowding means less chances of a gang war. A sheriff in Los Angeles believe racial tension could be stopped, if it was properly managed.

Social bond theory was initially developed by Hirschi in 1969. The basis of this theory is that criminal behaviour occurs when social bonds are broken. Hirschi (1969) explains how there are four key factors of a social bond and the strain on these factors motivates deviant behaviour. By applying Hirschi's social bond theory to prison can begin to explain why the prison experience may increase later reoffending. Nagin et al (2009) furthers this explaining how prison may have negative effects on offender through reducing exposure of positive pro social bonds and increasing the exposure of negative influences.

Another cause of corruption is officers developing friendships to some degree with particular inmates (Brasswell, McCarthy, & McCarthy, 2008). While this is not necessarily a negative aspect of the job, it can lead to corruption. “Friends” are expected to look out for each other; this means that guards are expected to allow the befriended inmates to have certain luxuries. In the event of the formation of such relationships, an occurrence similar to Stockholm syndrome, with the effects reversed, may occur. The guard (the captor, in this case) may begin to feel that his “friend” (the captured inmate) is also a victim. That feeling, in turn, will lead to a heightened sense of compassion toward the inmate and an increased sense of duty to assist the inmate whenever and wherever possible.

But what I had found is that this book was written by a liberal journalist, who loves convicted felons but dislikes and looks down upon Correction Officers . . . opps I mean "guards" as Ted Conover likes to say.

A Corrections Officer has many duties to consider as they manage the activities of inmates. They are charged with the responsibilities of conducting head counts, monitoring recreational activities, and supervising their work assignments while maintaining a safe environment ensuring the welfare of those who are incarcerated in the correctional facility and employed there, as well as protect the safety of the public communities. They are investigators trained to search for illegal or prohibited goods smuggled into the institution, respond to riots, transport inmates and write reports. Although the job of an officer is challenging still the manner in which they ought to interact with the inmates should exemplify a standard of discipline that displays ethical professionalism, and respect at all times.