Can I Trust My Co-worker? Examining Correctional Officers’ Perceptions of Staff–Inmates Inappropriate Relationships within a Southern Penitentiary System

ABSTRACT

Recently, Joyce Mitchell, a correctional employee in New York, confessed to assisting two dangerous murderers in an elaborate escape attempt. While our study does not focus on correctional officers who admit to such deviant behaviors, it examines correctional officers’ perceptions of boundary violations committed by their co-workers. Using a macro-level ecological framework as our theoretical perspective, namely Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earl’s (1997) theory of collective efficacy, we surmise that organizational factors such as strong supervision and peer support can build mutual trust in prison environments where correctional officers perceive their jobs to be dangerous and stressful. Our findings have important implications for the management of correctional facilities as well as for the contemporary development and significance of the theory of collective efficacy.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance, support, and wonderful hospitality of countless TDCJ employees in Human Resources and Internal Affairs for making this research possible. The authors also acknowledge the valuable input of staff on local prison units. Finally, we deeply appreciate all the staff in Executive Services for facilitating this research project in countless ways from beginning to end. While the Texas Department of Criminal Justice approved this study, this does not imply the Department’s endorsement or concurrence with statements or conclusions contained therein.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert M. Worley

ROBERT M. WORLEY, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas; the editor of ACJS Today; associate editor of Deviant Behavior, book review editor of Theory in Action; coeditor of the upcoming two-volume encyclopedia, Lock Down Nation: An Encyclopedia of Controversies and Trends in American Prisons (under contract ABC-CLIO); and member of the Institute for Legal Studies in Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University. He has published academic articles in journals, such as, Deviant Behavior, Criminal Justice Review, Journal of Criminal Justice Education, and Criminal Law Bulletin, among others. Dr. Worley’s research interests include inmate-guard inappropriate relationships, police and prison officers’ liabilities for the use of tasers and stun guns, qualitative methods, and issues related to publication productivity and rankings in criminology and criminal justice. Most recently, Robert published an autoethnographic account of his 7 years as a correctional officer in the journal, Deviant Behavior.

Vidisha Barua Worley

VIDISHA BARUA WORLEY, Ph.D., Esquire, is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas; former contributing editor and columnist with the Criminal Law Bulletin (January 2010 to December 2013); founding member of the Institute for Legal Studies in Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University; associate book review editor of Theory in Action; coeditor of the upcoming two-volume encyclopedia, Lock Down Nation: An Encyclopedia of Controversies and Trends in American Prisons (under contract ABC-CLIO); and a licensed attorney in India and New York. She was a journalist in India for 6 years and worked at three national dailies, The Asian Age, Business Standard, and The Financial Express, respectively. She presented a paper on intellectual disability and the death penalty at the Oxford Round Table, Oxford University, England in March 2010. Professor Worley’s research areas include police and prison officers’ liabilities for the use of tasers and stun guns, the death penalty, prison rape, correctional officer deviance, inappropriate relationships between inmates and correctional officers, cyberbullying and sexting, ethical issues in criminal justice, and terrorism. Her published books include Press and Media Law Manual (2004) and Terrorism in India (2006).

Henda Hsu

HENDA HSU is an Assistant Professor of Criminology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. His research focuses on crime and terrorism prevention. His other interests lie in criminology theory, policing, and time-series analysis. Recently, Henda and Robert Apel published an article in the journal, Terrorism and Political Violence, which examined the effectiveness of airport metal detectors in deterring terrorists.