Stress on Corrections Officers in the U.S. Prison System

Introduction

The modern prison system is the result of some two hundred years of development. Seeking to eliminate cruel punishments and to develop a humane and scientific approach to the problems of crime and antisocial behavior, reformers created a complex system of institutional incarceration. Wrongdoers would be confined apart from society, their actions carefully controlled. They would either be punished or reformed — in either case, incarceration serving as a form of behavior modification. In the case of punishment, prisoners would refrain from the future commission of crimes because of their dread of exclusion from general society. In the case of reform, prisoners would be subjected to a variety of psychological techniques that would, hopefully, show them the error of their ways and result in their becoming upstanding and productive citizens.

The new approach to crime and criminal behavior entailed the employment of a veritable army of corrections personnel. These individuals would be more than just guards but, as their name implied, persons charged with "correcting" antisocial behavior. The pressures on these individuals would often be enormous. Dealing with some of the most violent and disturbed members of society on a daily basis, they faced conditions that could cause psychological injury — often severe — to both themselves and their families. They would walk a thin line between the perceived needs of society at large and their own personal needs and desires. The modern prison began with the idea of reform; it continues to wrestle with the definition of that concept.

The institutional nature of the modern prison system owes much to the ideas of the pioneering criminologist Cesare Beccaria, who placed strong emphasis on what might be termed "act-egalitarianism" — the consideration of the criminality of acts rather than of persons. This principle led to the development of a system of incarceration, and either punishment or reform, that would apply equally to all persons who had committed the same offense or kind of offense (Whitman, 2003, p. 51). It was, in other words, criminal behavior that was to be the object of the budding prison system. Following earlier models of jurisprudence, early prisons were often notorious for the cruel treatment of their inmates. Little regard was given to the idea that prisoners might have rights or even basic needs as human beings.

Historical Development of the Prison System

Elizabeth Fry, another early reformer, visited prisons and noted not only the harsh treatment of those incarcerated but also the detrimental effects of this treatment on any possibility of rehabilitation. In particular, Fry focused on creating prison conditions suited to the needs of inmates or classes of inmates, as in her drive to improve conditions in women's prisons and provide care suited to the circumstances of female inmates (Cochrane, Melville, & Marsh, 2004, p. 86).

The separate and silent systems were two approaches to the care and "retraining" of prisoners in the nineteenth century. In the first, prisoners were kept isolated in individual cells where they were assigned tasks intended to reform them in body and mind. The system was unpopular because of its great expense — an enormous number of individual prison cells were required. Under the silent system, prisoners could be kept together but under a rule of strict silence. Communication between prisoners was thought to breed crime and increase criminal tendencies.

Increasingly, the devastating effects of the separate system were recognized, and it was largely abandoned during the twentieth century. In addition to its harmful psychological effects on individual prisoners, research demonstrated that:

"Weakened social bonds can alter the view that prisoners have of themselves. Feelings of separateness and anonymity can produce a de-individuated state whereby prisoners become dulled to the consequences of their actions. On the other hand, weakened social bonds can affect the perception prisoners and guards have of others. The prison environment can facilitate neutralizations or cognitive disengagements that allow others to be divested of their human qualities." (Wortley, 2002, p. 38)

Rehabilitation Movements and Psychological Approaches

With the growth of interest in psychology during the twentieth century, new approaches were tried in prison arrangement and management that sought to address the needs of both prisoners and those who watched over them. Parole and probation programs were promoted as necessary ways of rewarding prisoners for good behavior (Keve, 1995, p. 65). Indeed, probation was the strongest expression of the new notion that rehabilitation, and not simple punishment or coercion, was the real goal of incarceration. America's prisons were restructured to provide for the reform of prisoners and the removal of their criminal tendencies. Using various forms of psychological training and analysis, together with education and job training, prisoners were to be transformed into productive and law-abiding citizens.

The new prison system would "effect changes in the characters, attitudes, and behavior of convicted offenders, so as to strengthen the social defense against unwanted behavior, but also to contribute to the welfare of offenders" (Bunzel, 1995). It would be a win-win situation, with prisoners getting their lives back and society at large being protected from their dangerous actions. The brutal regimes of the past were to disappear, and prisoners were to be treated as individual men and women in need of help. Their life histories were to be examined, and their antisocial tendencies diagnosed and treated.

Conclusion

The tug-of-war between the competing demands of politicians' (and the public's) cry for a war on crime and the needs of prisoners who either must be rehabilitated or punished creates an enormous pressure on those who must police and supervise America's prisons. Corrections officers must deal with individuals — many of whom are hardened criminals with violent tendencies — while attempting to navigate between these prisoners' constitutional rights and the need of the prison system to maintain order and achieve its objectives, whatever those might be. The swing back and forth between rehabilitation and "lock them up and throw away the key" makes corrections officers' jobs more difficult than they might otherwise be.