The Correctional Officer-Inmate Relationship: Evaluating Job Functionality to Enhance Rehabilitation
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Course Name
SO201 Writing for Social Sciences
Faculty
Miamidian
Department
Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice; College of Arts & Sciences
Abstract
The relationship between correctional officers (COs) and the prison populations they survey is vastly understudied in the field of criminal justice. Currently, reports on correctional officers focus on the officers' indispensable role in the prison system as well as their subjectivity to high turnover rates. Studies assessing this relationship would be of great use to prison administrations and the criminal justice system as a whole, because creating effective relationships between COs and inmates may correlate with incidences of job stress and turnover. Utilizing a shift in research would also promote rehabilitative attitudes as the correctional officer and inmate relationship is called into question. Documented cases such as the Milgram obedience study, Attica prison riot, and cases of excessive force used by COs help explain the relationship; however, studies geared specifically towards the relationship would be more conclusive. Without assessing this relationship, correctional officers will continue to be subject to turnover and job stress. Only when this relationship is analyzed and improved can prison systems begin to achieve higher rates of rehabilitation.
Recommended Citation
Stern, Maya, "The Correctional Officer-Inmate Relationship: Evaluating Job Functionality to Enhance Rehabilitation" (2019). Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works. 59.
https://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/undergrad_works/59