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publication of the Justice Center |
Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Center |
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John Riley
Observers of prison life often
come away from correctional facilities with the sense that many
correctional officers share an authoritarian and punitive orientation
to their work, an image conforming to the popular stereotype
of the brutal and sadistic guard attracted to prison work because
of emotional conflicts involving power and control. While research
suggests that these assumptions about the motivation of corrections
professionals lack empirical foundation, they persist.
The stereotype is sustained, in
part, by an historical legacy of brutality and by actual incidents
of violence and psychological abuse that do still occur. However,
decades of research make it clear that the tendency to stereotype
correctional officers cannot be explained by recruitment of unsuitable
applicants or by the actual misconduct of correctional officers.
Nevertheless, it is equally clear that even sympathetic visitors
to our prisons often find it hard to understand the behavior
of the officers.
Correctional officers are themselves
troubled when they see medical providers, members of the clergy,
teachers, and others come away from the prison feeling a greater
affinity for the inmates than for the individuals on whom the
safety and success of their visit depends. Reactions to this
persistent stereotyping are undoubtedly implicated in work-related
stress and job dissatisfaction.
An adequate understanding of correctional
work requires an appreciation of the dynamics of occupational
culture. Like workers in any profession, correctional officers
participate in the continuing reproduction of an occupational
culture consisting of norms, values, and understandings not easily
appreciated by outsiders. The subculture of correctional officers
allows them to make sense of a complex social environment. Examining
the ways in which correctional officers work to make sense of
the prison experience can provide an opportunity to move beyond
stereotypes.
One of the chief sensemaking accomplishments
of correctional officers is the establishment of a group understanding
of inmate identity. Many, though certainly not all, officers
routinely participate in an almost ritualistic devaluation of
inmate identity, which involves maintaining a set of unflattering
working assumptions about inmate character. This tends to reinforce
the idea that individual officers share a punitive and authoritarian
orientation .
This article reports on observational
research conducted during the winter of 1993 at Spring Creek
Correctional Center in Seward, Alaska. It analyzes the informal
conversational practices of correctional officers working in
the maximum security prison to show how practices of cultural
interpretation common to all work groups may pose particular
public relations challenges to correctional officers and those
who supervise them. In 1993, at the Spring Creek prison, 150
correctional officers supervised approximately 426 inmates. The
data discussed here represent approximately 125 hours of on-site
observation and an equal number of hours spent outside the institution
talking and socializing with members of the institutional staff.
While studies focusing on single institutions cannot provide
a foundation for extensive generalization, such studies provide
an important starting point for analysis of occupational culture.
Three Occasions for Sensemaking
With any group, the activities
that sustain an organizational culture become most apparent when
dominant assumptions about identity, behavior, and the nature
of the environment are questioned. Hence, sensemaking activity
is most amenable to study where routine patterns of activity
are called into question. In most organizations, opportunities
for sensemaking present themselves with the appearance of new
members or inquisitive visitors, individuals who require socialization
if they are to share the work group’s understanding of behavioral
norms and occupational realities.
In many correctional settings,
one of the chief accomplishments of sensemaking is the development
of a working understanding of the inmate as untrustworthy, manipulative,
and dangerous . Correctional officers share a working understanding
of inmates that can be described as a form of categorical devaluation.
It is important to understand that acceptance of a working understanding
does not necessarily imply that individual officers accept this
view as an accurate description of individual inmate identity.
Rather, a working understanding is akin to a legal fiction, or
a safety maxim that we learn to accept for its utility even while
maintaining reservations about its factual content. Correctional
officers learn to regard all inmates as potentially dangerous
for the same reason that firearms enthusiasts are taught to treat
all guns as loaded and dentists are taught to see all patients
as potential carriers of infection—a universal precaution.
And like universal precautions in medicine and dentistry, this
one may serve as a touchstone of professional competency.
At Spring Creek Correctional Center
three kinds of events routinely call into question this working
sense of inmate identity which guides custodial staff.
Reading the Record
In a well-managed institution,
visitors may interact with inmates in a variety of settings.
Such interactions may conform to the expectations that govern
life outside the institution. Visitors thus often conclude that
inmates are essentially normal. However, when an outsider remarks
favorably on the behavior of a particular inmate, it may call
into question the working understanding of experienced correctional
staff. This then commonly gives rise to a sensemaking activity
that may be referred to as reading the record.
Officers at Spring Creek have access
to a computer-generated Confidential Register which provides
information on each inmate. Other than noting an institutional
work assignment, these records contain little favorable information
about an individual. Rather, they provide a portrait of the inmate
as an offender, describing his criminal history, sentence, release
date, security classification, and housing assignment. When outsiders
refer to a particular inmate’s success in program participation,
his cooperative demeanor, or his work ethic, the correctional
officer often resorts to reading the record, i.e., he finds an
occasion to present the outsider with the facts about an individual
inmate as an offender.
Because Spring Creek is a maximum
security prison, the criminal histories of the inmates involve
extremely serious offenses. Revealing the homicide, rape, or
assault in the inmate’s past to a visitor who has commented
favorably on the inmate reinforces the working understanding
of inmates held by experienced correctional staff.
The following are typical of remarks
by visitors, treatment staff, or new officers that prompt a reading
of the confidential record:
He seems like a reasonable inmate.
I enjoyed talking with him. I imagine inmates like him make your job easier.
It is a shame to see a guy like him end up here.
Not all such remarks are addressed by a reading of the record. When they are, the response does not typically suggest a sense of urgency; the response may be immediate or it may be delayed, even for several days. Reading the record generally occurs seamlessly in a moment of casual interaction, filling the time when things are slow. But while those who participate in such activities probably do so with the sense that not very much is happening, these are clearly moments of considerable importance in the sensemaking process. Officers typically respond to favorable or even neutral comments on inmates with remarks such as these:
Well, let’s look him up and see.
I don’t know [John Doe] yet. Open that print-out to the “D’s” and we’ll see why he’s here.
Remember that convict you asked me about yesterday? Take a look at this.
The informality of such responses
masks the serious nature of the sensemaking work accomplished.
The homicides, rapes, and assaults referenced in the Confidential
Register remind officers and those who question their working
understanding of the inmate that appearances may be deceiving
and that common sense dictates the need for caution and distance
when dealing with inmates.
The “facts” in the record
are, of course, an incomplete and one-sided account of an inmate’s
life, but they have a compelling official quality. Presenting
them permits officers a way to provide skeptical outsiders with
an apparently objective confirmation of the working view of inmate
character.
Justifying Acts of Tolerance
For correctional officers who
work directly with inmates, events often require individual discretion
in enforcing institutional rules. Even minor events can challenge
officers to find creative solutions to the many human relations
problems associated with managing inmates. Like their law enforcement
counterparts, correctional officers cannot respond to every instance
of rule-breaking with formal sanctions. To do so would be time-consuming,
inefficient, and counter-productive. Hence, officers rely heavily
on informal strategies, overseeing the production of order through
continuous negotiation with the individuals they encounter.
Contrary to stereotype, the officers
observed during the course of the project showed patience, tact,
tolerance, and creativity in dealing with inmates. Officers frequently
ignore, at least temporarily, obvious violations of minor institutional
rules. Sometimes the violations are ignored until an inmate can
be isolated from potential sources of support and reprimanded
in private or until an inmate who is obviously very angry has
a chance to “cool off.” For example, although it is
illegal to smoke in any building on the Spring Creek compound,
a prudent officer might ignore an inmate caught smoking in a
doorway on a cold day if he or she is aware that the inmate just
received news of the death of a family member or the loss of
an important appeal.
Such tolerance makes good sense.
Officers at Spring Creek supervise large groups of inmates either
alone or with minimal assistance from other officers. It is not
uncommon for individual officers to work with 40 to 50 inmates.
Given the dynamics of supervision in contemporary institutions,
no officer would fault another for reluctance to turn a minor
problem into a possible confrontation. But this exercise of tolerance
can seem to present a contradiction to the ideological orientation
of correctional officers.
When officers find themselves in
situations where tolerance may be interpreted in ways that are
inconsistent with their common sense notions of inmate identity,
they may exercise a variety of sensemaking options. Typically,
acts of tolerance are reframed as maneuvers in the ongoing struggle
to maintain control. Officers frequently recount stories of minor
confrontations that escalated into major events. According to
one version of the Attica, New York uprising in 1971, the riots
were sparked when a guard tackled an inmate who refused to leave
his cell for a disciplinary hearing.
Such pragmatic justification is
a sensemaking strategy that allows staff to exercise tolerance
without undermining the working understanding of inmate character
that informs their professional decision making. By linking excessive
intolerance for minor infractions with serious trouble, officers
demonstrate their commitment to control even while it might appear
that they are failing to exercise complete control in the present.
Tough Talk and Institutional Due Process
The third example of sensemaking
involves the offensive speech sometimes termed ritual insubordination:
the complaining, swearing, griping, or bitching which often characterizes
a collective response to occupational stress. The meaning of
the term is partly captured in the common sense notion of “blowing
off steam.” Erving Goffman defined ritual insubordination
in his well known work, Asylums (Anchor Books, 1961). The term
applies where insubordinate behavior “is not realistically
expected to bring about change.” Goffman views ritual insubordination
as a largely expressive act, lacking in practical utility, but
an important aspect in the identity work of individuals experiencing
conflict between role expectations and personal identity.
For Goffman, ritual insubordination
is a form of symbolic “leave taking”. It allows individuals
to momentarily distance themselves from those requirements of
participation in complex organizations that have the strongest
implications for personal identity by affording participants
a sense of personal autonomy at times when the demands of institutional
participation seem most compelling. Because shared ritual insubordination
serves to promote solidarity among participants, it plays a role
in the promotion of job satisfaction and the reduction of employee
turnover—major issues in the field of corrections. At Spring
Creek Correctional Center, ritual insubordination can include
profane or disparaging remarks or jokes about inmates, comments
that call into question the legitimacy of institutional due process,
and narratives that challenge the credibility and competence
of inmates.
Ritual insubordination was observed
during meetings of the institution’s disciplinary committee.
Known in the institution as the “D-Board,” this committee
of correctional officers provides inmates with the first elements
of due process required by law when individuals are charged with
consequential violations of institutional rules.
Disciplinary hearings at Spring
Creek were conducted before a senior officer, who served as chairperson,
and three other officers, who served as committee members. Service
on the disciplinary committee depends upon availability, shift
assignments, and the discretion of the officers in charge. The
committee hears testimony from the accused inmate, from the officer
making the charge and, when relevant, from other officers, inmates,
or staff.
Although hearings have elements
of a courtroom trial, they differ from trials in fundamental
ways. Because of the need to maintain institutional security,
including protecting witnesses from retaliation, inmates do not
enjoy the right to confront witnesses or even to be present when
testimony is offered against them. Disciplinary committees may
elect to withhold information from the prisoner if security concerns
are an issue. Both testimony and committee deliberations may
take place with only the officers assigned to the committee present.
The routine is such that the disciplinary
committee is frequently alone, waiting for witnesses, deliberating
the facts of the case, or considering punishment options. While
a tape recorder is used to produce a record of each case, when
inmates were asked to leave to facilitate private discussion,
recording was often suspended.
During free moments, “D-Board”
committee members typically engage in gossip, storytelling, jokes,
and the “griping or bitching” that Goffman called ritual
insubordination. Committee members frequently commented on the
character of both particular prisoners with whom they interacted
and the “typical” prisoner incarcerated at Spring Creek.
In the 36 disciplinary hearings observed during the course of
the study, derogatory remarks and stories about inmates and cynical
remarks about the disciplinary process were commonplace. Officers
referred to individuals about to be heard as “the next victim.”
They sometimes engaged in tongue-in-cheek discussion of punishment
options before the facts of the case were heard. In one instance,
an officer inquiring about a pending case asked, “What’s
this one guilty of?” An inmate who refused to attend his
hearing was said to have “PMS today” (an interesting
remark in an environment where few things are taken to be more
offensive than remarks that call into question someone’s
masculinity). At times, inmates were described as “stupid,”
denigrated for their sexual preferences, and compared to animals.
If the informal conversation that
accompanies disciplinary hearings is presented out of its larger
context, it can be a source for moral outrage. For while the
worst remarks came from a relatively small group of officers,
and at no time were offensive remarks noted in the presence of
inmates, these exchanges reflect and reinforce a derogatory conception
of inmate identity. The working consensus emerges: inmates are
immature, untrustworthy, unpredictable, weak, perverse, and a
potential source of trouble for staff.
Of course, context is important.
Offensive remarks also can be heard in conversations where teachers
talk about students and administrators, where physicians talk
about nurses and patients, and where people discuss the shortcomings
of their own relatives. But this is sometimes forgotten by those
who visit correctional institutions and overhear expression of
ritual insubordination. To the institutional visitor, unprofessional
remarks call into question the integrity and the moral values
of those who make them.
None of this should be surprising.
Institutional visitors do not share the correctional officer’s
context for discussion of this sort. They may assume that such
remarks reflect a level of bias that makes fair dealing with
inmates impossible. In reality, ritual insubordination may be
a way of saving face when inmates win relatively favorable outcomes
in disciplinary cases. The toughest talk observed during the
36 disciplinary hearings observed at Spring Creek Correctional
Center consistently occurred in cases where inmates received
outcomes more favorable than some correctional officers thought
fair. Lacking this information, visitors to the institution might
assume that such language reflects systematic mistreatment of
prisoners. In fact, in the cases observed, it was more common
in situations where officers showed commendable self-restraint
in dealing with difficult inmates.
Disciplinary boards are required
to choose between the version of events offered by the officer
who made the initial charge and the version offered by an inmate.
In situations where the board finds that punishment of an inmate
is unjustified, board members are, in a sense, breaking ranks.
This was understood by the majority of the officers involved
in the cases observed, and it was particularly clear to the officer
in charge of the hearings. When interviewed, he described his
role as leader of the disciplinary committee by saying “I’m
here to make sure the officer doesn’t get stepped on out
there.”
In addition to being put in a position
where it may seem that they are siding with an inmate, correctional
officers who show too much concern for an inmate’s rights
also call into question the working understanding of inmate identity,
a hallmark of professional competence and an important expression
of group loyalty. While this can be justified pragmatically,
like any expression of tolerance, it still creates high levels
of cognitive dissonance for those involved. It is exactly the
sort of situation in which one would expect conscientious officers
to experience stress, with a need to reaffirm their commitment
to colleagues and the occupational culture. In the context of
disciplinary hearings, ritual insubordination may affirm loyalty
and professional identity.
Conclusion
Sensemaking activity is inevitable,
and the sensemaking activity of correctional officers may inevitably
be somewhat oppositional. Given their professional responsibilities,
this is probably appropriate. A working definition of the inmate
that discourages trust and encourages vigilance is a requirement
of correctional work. Without such assumptions, it is hard to
understand how the job could be done. It is for good reason that
a working understanding of inmate identity which encourages officers
to view inmates with suspicion is viewed by many as a hallmark
of competent correctional practice.
If officers dramatize their commitment
to the norms and understandings of their profession in their
informal conversational routines, this too seems understandable.
In all professions people take a certain trouble to express their
commitment. Such conversation socializes newcomers, serves to
identify strangers, offers opportunities for the expression of
loyalty and helps group members make sense of apparent inconsistencies
in their own behavior. It teaches, and it brings people together.
These are ritual moments in the life of the group, moments when
individuals who work in considerable isolation may join with
others to build mutual trust, understanding, and respect.
While conversational routines that
disparage inmates are to be expected in corrections, problems
may arise when the denigration of inmates is taken too far, or
when institutional newcomers are exposed to these routines without
first learning to appreciate their significance. It is unlikely
that new employees or prison visitors could discern the difference
between an overly enthusiastic expression of loyalty and words
that express a genuine contempt for the human rights of inmates.
In the end, even with considerable experience and understanding,
it may not always be possible to distinguish between words spoken
by a decent officer who is tired, provoked, or wants to be one
of the guys, and the language of an officer whose orientation
to the job is such that he or she is likely to abuse the rights
of inmates.
Data collected in one institution
cannot allow us to speak with confidence about all officers or
all facilities. This work does suggest that the organization
of correctional work may provide predictable opportunities for
misunderstanding and conflict. Correctional officers must treat
inmates humanely. At the same time, they must be prepared for
the worst from even the best inmates they supervise. Like physicians,
they must be prepared to help all those who come into their care,
while remaining aware that any professional encounter may result
in tragedy. Even the most apparently cooperative inmate may pose
a serious threat to the safety of others. Training sessions that
stress the need for a correctional equivalent to the medical
concept of Universal Precautions may help correctional officers
to reconcile the conflicting imperatives that structure their
work. Offering medical practice as a model, trainers should encourage
officers to develop an operational understanding of inmate identity
that encourages caution while allowing compassion. By instructing
officers in the dynamics of sensemaking, and by encouraging reflection
on the informal conversational practices of the group, correctional
trainers can help officers to distinguish between appropriate
commitment to custody and control and the sort of punitive and
authoritarian attitudes that undermine commitment to the rule
of law, threaten the security of correctional institutions, and
ultimately contribute to the persistence of the stereotype of
the brutal guard.
The author wishes to thank Superintendent
Larry Kincheloe and the staff at Spring Creek Correctional Center
for their cooperation and assistance.
John Riley is an assistant professor with the Justice Center.