Essay On Correctional Officers

In today’s pop culture, media of all forms portrayals of correctional officers are almost always negative. Correctional officers are portrayed as bad, “meat head” type men. They are depicted as authoritarian, insensitive and without any redeeming qualities. This image of correctional officers is one in which many people believe and think of when they view prison life. These images can be found in films like “Shawshank Redemption”, where guards brutally beat, sometimes to death, the inmates they are responsible for. It is portrayed that the guards do not care about the inmates but instead hate them to the point that most believe they are always harsh and use excessive force. One harsh officer claimed he “wouldn’t piss on them [inmates]

Officers both respected the inmates and in a way became friends with them, or they hated them, seeing them as the lowest of lows. When Conover was training with Smith on V-gallery, he realized that Smith knew his inmates and his inmates knew him, and that was the type of officer Conover wanted to be. When he eventually received a regular job spot in B-block, he decided to get to know his inmates, at least the ones that allowed him too. Slowly he got to know them and it made his job a lot easier at times. Around the holidays, he even smuggled in and gave away cigarettes that would have gotten thrown away to the inmates he knew. Other offices though referred to inmates as savages. Many referred to them in derogatory terms and he notes “if a savage dissed you, what did it matter? And if a savage got hurt (particularly due to an error on your part), who cared?”(p.87). The culture of the officers was similar to the inmate-officer relationship in that some officers were friendly and others were not. “Many judged themselves and their peers by the degree of control they were able to maintain over the inmates”(p.31). Many were not looking for friendships nor were they looking to help the Newjacks. During Conover’s first week, Holmes said “don’t fuck with me, I’m going to give you your job assignment, and if you complain I’ll give you a worse on tomorrow. I’m not nice. Don’t fuck with me”. Some officers though, Conover got along with. He began carpooling with one officer to and from work. Many did not like this officer but Conover got a different impression from driving with him daily. These officer worked to make a living to support their families and were not there to make or be