Canadian prisoners’ perceptions of correctional officer orientations to their occupational responsibilities

Abstract

Correctional officers (COs) play a fundamental role in shaping prisoners’ experiences of incarceration. Yet, little is known about how prisoners perceive the orientations of COs (e.g. punitive vs. rehabilitation; liberal –humanitarian vs. neo-liberal) in light of their lived experiences, and how such orientations affect their well-being. Semi- structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 56 Canadian former federal prisoners to lend insight into how prisoners’ experience, discern and interpret officers. Shaped by the work of Crewe and Liebling [Crewe, Ben, and Alison Liebling. 2012. “Are Liberal Humanitarian Penal Values and Practices Exceptional.” In Penal Exceptionalism? Nordic Prison Policy and Practice, edited by T. Ugelvik and J. Dullum, 175 –198. Abingdon: Routledge], the data reveal that prisoners viewed officer orientations as either dualists (e.g. taking both a security and a harmony- oriented approach in their occupational role), moral relativists (e.g. ambivalent in their position), or punishers (e.g. holding some distain towards prisoners). Liberal humanitarian approaches were more common among dualists while neo-liberal values were thought to underlie the behaviours of punitively oriented officers.

Keywords:

• liberal –humanitarian
• neoliberal
• prisoners
• corrections
• rehabilitation
• punishment

Notes

1. Persons sentenced to a maximum of 2 years less a day are sent to provincial prison in Canada.

2. Canadian COs have been victims of violence, or threats of violence, job stress, and other factors (Boyd 2011; Seidman and Williams 1999).

3. They did not find any statistically significant correlations in the staff model.

4. It is recognized that scholars have developed typologies of COs (see, e.g. Crawley 2004); however, the focus here is on the typology of Crewe and Liebling (2012) first constructed to explain correctional managers’ orientations.

5. Braithwaite (1994) also referred to the ‘materialist’ and ‘post-materialist’ orientations, both based on prior experiences, which are inapplicable in the current study because former-prisoners lack knowledge about officer’s prior experiences or their life circumstances.

6. At the time of the study, in Ontario, Canada, there were 11 adult male prisons: two were maximum security, five medium, three minimum, and one multilevel (Regional Treatment Centre). Respondents who served time at each of these prisons were included in the sample.

7. Rutherford’s (1994) primary credo – orientations geared towards problem-free, efficient, and effective management – is consistently spread across most orientations (e.g. evident in harmony and security orientations).

8. This was before smoking was banned.

9. COs, provincially, require a lot of sick days and many also utilize sick leaves.