A preliminary investigation of the effect of correctional officers’ bases of power on their fear and risk of victimization

Abstract

Despite research on disorder in prison, knowledge is limited regarding keeping order within the correctional environment. A sector of this research delves into how the uses of correctional officer power influence inmate compliance and support the goals of the institution, but no research has examined how officers rely on different power bases because of their own fear and risk of victimization; the current study preliminarily explores this issue. This study used the results of a self-administered survey of 1231 officers in adult prisons in a Mid-Atlantic state. Of the various bases of power, expert power and legitimate power were negatively related to fear, and expert power and referent power were negatively related to risk of victimization. Conversely, reward power was positively related to risk of victimization. The study concluded that officers who rely on more internal bases of power are less fearful and believe themselves to be at lower risk of victimization compared to officers who rely on more external bases of power.

Keywords::

• correctional officers
• power
• risk of victimization
• fear of victimization

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr Faye S. Taxman at George Mason University for allowing them to use her data-set. They also thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

^1. The single items for each power base were chosen using the following criteria: the best fit with the concept and the greatest amount of variation within the responses.

^2. Although it is possible that this item gets more at what rewards officers wish they can use versus what they can actually use, as Hepburn (1985) noted, officers have few legitimate privileges and benefits to issue to inmates. One possibility is to examine the use of the ‘norm of reciprocity,’ where officers are able to get some inmates to comply by relaxing minor rules. In return, the inmates avoid violating the minor rules (Hepburn 1985). Another possibility of reward power is to ask about special help and benefits officers can give, but as Stichman (2003) suggested, inmates might view these as favors granted to inmates trying to ingratiate themselves to officers. Officers who believe they need to rely on rewards (or withholding of rewards) could be the ones most likely to actually use them if those rewards were available. Two additional reward power items were included in the survey: one that specifically tapped into the norm of reciprocity and one that stated that officers have power over inmates when inmates believe officers can issue rewards. These items were rejected because of lack of variation in the responses (i.e., ∼90% of officers disagreed with both items).

^3. It may be argued that the fear and risk scales are ordinal – rather than ratio-level. First, there was adequate variation in the dependent variables to use OLS. Second, ordinal regression analyses were conducted after collapsing categories to the four-point scale of rarely afraid/likely to very afraid/likely. The significance results were similar to those obtained through OLS.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amy J. Stichman

Amy J. Stichman is an Assistant Professor of Practice in Criminal Justice at North Dakota State University. Her previous publications have included evaluating sex offender laws, use of internships in criminal justice programs, evaluating correctional programs, mentoring, workplace experiences, and tokenism in policing.

Jill A. Gordon

Jill A. Gordon is an associate professor and Chair of the Criminal Justice Program in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research interests include evaluative studies of correctional policy encompassing both adult and juvenile systems, correctional employees’ attitudes toward work, clients and overall organizational issues, and domestic violence issues related to the criminal justice response. Her work has appeared in outlets such as Justice Quarterly, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice.