Unit C Blog #17

After viewing the video for NBC's Locked Up in North Carolina we can see that many aspects of prison life as well as the life of a correctional officer are similar to Britton's study while other points are a little contrasting. I will attempt to answer all of the questions on the blog assignment while comparing and contrasting the Britton study with the NBC video.

Building relationships with the prisoners can be viewed in two very distinct ways, just as Britton's study showed. The two ways are that either the guards feel as if the prisoners are still human and that they still deserve to be treated as such or they feel as if the prisoners are too pampered and that they do not deserve to have so much access to goods and services. In the NBC video none of the guards expressed their feelings on this situation too clearly, but they seemed to take more of a strict friend approach to the prisoners situations. For example, in the kitchen one guard said that she would be there to talk to the prisoners whenever they needed someone to talk to, but she also said that she would be the first person to lock these ladies up and they were well aware of this. I believe that the officers in the NBC documentary do believe that these women are human and that they deserve to have the rights to do some of the things in which they want to do. For instance the officers let them do cosmetology related tasks such as do hair with curling irons and scissors so obviously there is some trust involved in the relationship between guard and prisoner in this situation.

In Britton's study the role of African American and Latino corrections officers did not differ than that of a Caucasian detention officer. Britton thought that perhaps there might be some sort of difference in the treatment or perhaps even the way the job works for the racial minority because of the high level of minority prisoners in prisons across the United States but this seemed to have little effect on the officers. In the NBC video there seemed to be no correlation between race of inmate, officer, or treatment of either one because of these things. The race in the women's prison in North Carolina differed tremendously with a high percentage of white inmates as well as African American. I do not believe that race, when considering correctional officers, had much to do with the study in either case.

It seemed as if the officers assumptions and perceptions of the inmates seemed to differ by the officer, but I could not see a case in which an officer was particularly hostile toward an inmate for an unidentified reason. I think the assumptions that the officers make is that these inmates are here to serve time, and that these inmates are potentially dangerous. While the officers may want to look and seem like a friend who can help out the inmate, they also have to watch out for themselves because things can go wrong very fast for an officer trying to engage an inmate with either a sexual connection or by bringing them items. The perception that the officers have toward inmates seemed to be to give them the benefit of the doubt until they prove that they do not deserve it by getting into extra trouble with fights etc. The overseer of the North Carolina prison seemed very strict and unwilling to make extra connections with the inmates. She seemed very by the book and for her this is a great thing because if she allows her employees to gain any slack or ground on her by being too friendly with the inmates then her job is at stake.

The forms of social control that were used were primarily isolation tanks in which the inmate is usually miserable and separated from human life 23 hours a day. This is a very demoralizing aspect in the prison for the inmates yet it seems to be one of the most effective because often times the only other people that the inmates can rely on is each other, and with isolation you start a journey of complete loneliness and moral adjustment. I did not see in the video that any of the guards were purposely infantilizing the inmates by nurturing them but I can guarantee that this happens after reading about Britton's study and how the guards, especially female guards, will try to nurture the inmates in a motherly type of way.