PRISONER EXPRESS

If we do not hold firmly to our ideals and beliefs, we quickly become no different from the enemies we are currently struggling against. As a consequence of all that has happened, the question, "What makes a good corrections officer (C.O)?" has to be asked and answered...

From the beginning it should be established who should not become corrections officers. The sadomasochistic; aggressive sex perverts; and the mentally sub par should be culled out. The desperation caused by personnel shortages has often been the cause, along with low pay, for the foregoing types routinely being hired by corrections departments. Additionally, testing should focus on filtering out those with the Marshall Dillon complex, or those looking to settle scores with childhood bullies who gave them the blues on the school yard. Those involved in the selection process must keep in mind that some people seek certain jobs for the opportunity the work may provide them to do safely what is unethical, immoral, or illegal.

The variables of basic human nature in response to authority, and the effect of the aberration that is prison, its culture and environment, has on those variables should also be considered to find what makes a good correctional officer. The prison experiment done at t the University of California Berkeley in the late 60's demonstrated that typical college students could easily be transformed by the prison situation into abusive guards.

Earlier, in 1960, in Stanley Milgrim's obedience study conducted at Yale University, where 40 naïve subjects from a wide cross-section of society believed they were delivering electric shocks to another person for failure to perform a particular memory task, all test subjects far exceeded expectations as to the degree of pain they would inflict in obedience to an order. All test subjects went to at least 300 volts, with 5 refusing beyond that, and an amazing 26 going on to deliver the sizzling (at least they thought it was sizzling) 450 volts often to what they thought was an unconscious test subject on the other side of the wall.

Two easy conclusions can be drawn from these examples. One, most people cannot rise above an unnatural situation when obedience to authority is required and remain true to themselves and their values. Two, the majority of people will obey authority even when the orders are clearly wrong. Many of Milgrim's subjects said close to the same thing during the experiment, "These are terrific volts. I don't think this is very humane...Oh, I can't go on with this, no, this isn't right." But, they did go on, and most went to the highest volts possible.

From information that has leaked out during the investigation of what happened in Abu Ghraib Prison, it is obvious that the orders to inflict the human rights violations on the prisoners came from as high as the Pentagon and even the White House. Therefore, it is imperative to prevent future suffering and scandal that both soldiers and prison guards be trained to respond correctly to situations where illegal orders are given by superiors. Rising above such situation is certainly a part of being a good corrections officer.

Good corrections officers should be able to rise above a bad situation and remain true to themselves and to their values. Their values and stable sense of self should be the product of having been exposed to life experiences that season and create a worldview that is balanced and gives them the ability to interact fairly and objectively with those from all races, religions, ages, genders and walks of life. Having had military experience, a variety of healthy socializing experiences during the educational process, and being from the start at least 25 years of age would be positive characteristics in a corrections officer. An absolute requirement would be the ability to empathize while remaining objective.

Another good quality in a corrections officer is the ability to adapt to changing situations and being able during stressful events to keep priorities in a logical order. He or she must be astute enough to avoid becoming a causality of the cutthroat games that go on between manipulative prisoners and guards, and the ladder- climbing politics that goes on amongst corrections officers themselves.

The worst thing a corrections officer can be is rigid and inflexibly, mindlessly, by-the-book. Such behavior is dangerous to say the least. And being totally by the rule of the book is actually unfair because prison rules are purposely designed so that no matter how hard the prisoners try; it is next to impossible to be in compliance with them all the time. Administration wants to keep prisoners off balance and to have the power and pretext to make an example or point whenever they want.

In my own experience of the Texas prison system there have been three basic types of bad corrections officers. The shallow ladder climbing marionette, the bullying kid who is drunk on his power and the truly evil, sadistic person who projects the problems of his own life onto the prisoners. The other 75 percent of corrections officers just silently acquiesce in the wake of the foregoing. A repetitive phenomenon of prison life is that the cream settles to the bottom of the command structure and what needs culling out rises to the top. The good corrections officers have a difficult life. Once it is realized they are not in agreement with the institutionalized extreme anti-rehabilitation culture that permeates correction agencies, they will be socially isolated, marginalized and harassed to quit. The good corrections officer has to have strong commitment and a very tough constitution to last in this job.

Large physical size is a plus, but with today's technology, it does not have to be a determining factor. Neither are race, age, gender are determining factors in what makes a good corrections officer. The core question as to what does and does not make a good corrections officer is the question, is the person a person shame-based, or values-based in their actions and thinking?

Some fundamental changes have to be made in our culture as a whole because too many shame-based people are being produced. With the mind-numbing escalation of murder and mayhem in the Middle East, and the violence and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib we see proven and confirmed that evil begets evil. Let us focus on charity beginning at home and concentrate on removing the log from our own national eye by making the effort to select the best we can find for correctional positions and giving them compensation commensurate with the risks they are subjected to and their value to society.

The absolute ideal for a good corrections officer would be television's Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry R.F.D. That ideal is probably not achievable, but there is one thing we can be certain of: people rise and fall to the level of expectations. Since we have not been expecting much, we have not been getting much. Let us begin this national discussion by raising our level of expectations.