Deepening the Guard-Inmate Divide: An Exploratory Analysis of the Relationship between Staff-Inmate Boundary Violations and Officer Attitudes regarding the Mistreatment of Prisoners

ABSTRACT

Some correctional officers end their careers in disgrace when they engage in acts of cruelty against the very inmates they are paid to protect. In the present study, we administered 501 questionnaires to prison guards within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in order to identify characteristics of officers who may possess attitudes favorable to the mistreatment of inmates. We found that younger, male officers, who reported being dissatisfied with their jobs, were at a higher risk of ignoring wrongful acts against prisoners. Officers who lacked family support at home, as well as those who lacked supervisory support at work, were also more likely to tolerate acts of abuse or incivility toward offenders. Finally, officers who perceived their coworkers were engaging in staff-inmate boundary violations were more likely to accept the maltreatment of inmates than their peers. We posit these prison guards, who sensed their coworkers were crossing over to the offenders’ side, may have turned a blind eye toward acts of officer-on-inmate maltreatment in an attempt to demarcate a line between the keeper and the kept.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Janet Lambert for editing and proofreading the paper. The authors also thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions, which improved the paper. Finally, the authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance, support, and wonderful hospitality of countless TDCJ employees for facilitating this research project 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 herein

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert M. Worley

Robert M. Worley, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Director of the Criminal Justice Program at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas. Robert has published extensively on “inappropriate relationships” that occur between inmates and correctional officers. He has been interviewed by Reuters, the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the Marshall Project, as well as other media outlets. Robert is Co-editor (with Vidisha Barua Worley) of the Encyclopedia of American Prisons and Jails (ABC-Clio). He recently served as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in Eddy v. City and County of Denver, Denver Sheriff’s Department, a federal case that was settled out of court ($1.55 M). Robert’s work has appeared in journals, such as, Deviant Behavior, Criminal Law Bulletin, American Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Criminal Justice Education, and Criminal Justice Review, among others. Robert is currently an Associate Editor of Deviant Behavior and the Book Review Editor of Theory in Action. In 2019, Robert won the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences’ Historical Mini-Grant Award ($5,000).

Vidisha Barua Worley

Vidisha Barua Worley, Ph.D., Esquire, is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and Director of Strategic Planning for the Center for Death Penalty Studies at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas. Vidisha is also a 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; and Co-editor of the Encyclopedia of American Prisons and Jails (ABC-Clio). Vidisha is a licensed attorney in India and New York. She was a journalist in India for six years and worked at three national dailies, The Asian Age, Business Standard, and The Financial Express, respectively. Vidisha 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 (2002) and Terrorism in India (2006).

Eric G. Lambert

Eric G. Lambert is Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research interests include criminal justice organizational issues, the effectiveness of correctional interventions, organizational effects on the attitudes, intentions, and behaviors of criminal justice employees, capital punishment attitudes and views, and the international perceptions, attitudes, and views on criminal justice issues and punishment. Dr. Lambert has published articles in The Prison Journal, Security Journal, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, International Criminal Justice Review, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and Punishment and Society, among others.