blog 17

Building relationships with inmates present dangers for prison officers in several ways. One officer said that when inmates are put in prison it is because of poor decisions they made on the outside. When inmates form relationships with other inmates, their individual poor decisions come together to form one big issue for officers. One woman in the film said that she would form relationships with officers and then use their relationship to get money and other things out of them. The warden of the North Carolina women’s prison said that it was dangerous for officers and inmates to form relationships because the officers could potentially bring in dangerous contraband and drugs into the prison. All of these things make it more difficult to maintain order in a prison. Women inmates sometimes felt like they could manipulate male officers with tears or excuses. They felt they could get away with more with male officers than with female officers. The major assumption officers had of women inmates is that their issues with one another and the system were petty compared to issues that male inmates had. They often started fights or had altercations over small things. They argued with the officers over everything. The officers said that they felt like they were always being questioned or second-guessed whenever they told the women inmates to do something. Officers made a distinction between older inmates that “do their own time” and younger, less experienced violent inmates. Since African Americans and Latinos are the overwhelming majority of inmates, the officers faced unique challenges that white officers did not face. These officers are sensitized by their everyday interaction with racism. Most officers viewed inmates as humans that had made mistakes while out in society. The officers also revealed that they sometimes felt like baby sitters when taking care of the inmates.

blog 16

No one in Britton’s study said that they grew up wanting to be a correctional officer. Most of the men were in the service before they became correctional officers. Once the men got out of the service, they saw becoming a corrections officer as the logical next step. The men did express that they wanted to do something in law enforcement, like be a police officer, when they were children. Some of the women did say that they wanted to be police officers when they were children. Most of the women were working in clerical positions before becoming a correctional officer. A few of the women said they worked as baby sitters previously. They did not see how the two would be connected, but now realize that they are. They often compare being a correctional officer to being a baby sitter. Criminal justice and criminology majors are very popular as undergraduate majors at universities. Many people find out they are interested in corrections by taking a class about it and then decide that is the field they are interested in. Social networking played a role in some of the women’s progression into becoming a correctional officer. For example, one woman said that she was working as a secretary in corrections administration and was asked if she would like to work some overtime as an officer. She realized that the pay was better and that she actually enjoyed the work so she became a corrections officer full time. One woman was a manager at a retail store. She was looking for a different job and was told by a customer, a corrections officer, that the prison was hiring. The woman looked into it further and found that the pay was much better. So, she did her “stuff and got in.”

blog 14

Penitentiaries have always been very masculine in nature. In the beginning, men and women were housed together. Women were seen as a nuisance. They were blamed for making men do immoral things in prison, such as masturbating and getting women inmates pregnant. While men were responsible for learning tasks that would make them productive members of society, women were responsible for sewing and mending male inmates and officers clothes. Male criminals were seen as “idle, vicious, and depraved” men and the penitentiary’s disciplinary techniques were comprised of correcting these issues and, thus, creating the model citizen. Women were supposed to be “idle,” so the woman criminal was said to go against the morality of women and were unable to be reformed. Reformists sought to have women housed separately from men. They created women’s reformatories. These women’s reformatories were organized by middle-class women who saw this as their social mission. They created places where women would learn domestic skills, such as housekeeping. Their training programs emphasized traditional women’s roles. These women’s institutions were to be run by female staff and officers. They were designed like the “cottage plan” and were meant for young, first time criminals. These reformatories are a lot like female corrections facilities today. In the beginning women were seen as annoyances. Ideas about masculinity and femininity shaped the men’s and women’s reformatory movements. The women’s reformatory movement was successful only in the view of reform for the “fallen” white, working-class woman, women of color and poor white women continued to be treated like male convicts. They were commonly housed with men on prison farms and also were leased out like men during the convict leasing times.

Blog 13

Images of prison guards in popular media are male. They are often big burly men carrying batons or guns. These male officers are not afraid to use brute force when necessary and images of prisons in popular culture are violent. Women are not usually present as guards in popular media depictions of prisons. Masculinity is defined by being able to use violence, like a “real man”, when necessary. Women’s violence goes against all norms of popular views of femininity. The popularized views of prisons go against the realities of prisons today. Weapons are not permitted in the living areas of correctional facilities and violence is rare. Many people think that women cannot handle themselves in policing type jobs and it is more dangerous for them to be in those jobs than it is for men. The women depicted in popular media are usually “butch” looking women. They are not usually small women, but rather, strong and very masculine like. The promotional videos of women working in non-traditional jobs usually show a more masculine type woman, as opposed to a very feminine woman. The women in policing type jobs said that they like to be able to leave work and home life separate. One woman said that she never gets dressed in her uniform at home and always changes before she leaves work. She also said that she didn’t like to talk about being an officer because sometimes people would not want to be around her or associate with her because of her occupation. Her husband also did not like it in the beginning that she was going to be a police officer. He was afraid that she was not tough enough. She also explained that when she was considering becoming a SWAT officer, she was weary at first because she was afraid that the other officers would not want to be on the same team as a woman.