Styles of Control and Supervision (From Correctional Officers Power, Pressure and Responsibility, P 25-29, 1983, Julie N Tucker, ed. - See NCJ-100052)

• NCJ Number: 100056
• Author(s): B D Smith
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 5 pages
• Sale Source: American Correctional Association
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This article examines stresses associated with the correctional institutional setting and identifies adaptive styles of control and supervision of correctional officers that emerge in response to the setting.

Abstract

New correctional officers enter prisons with a presenting culture which is modified by the pressures of the total institution. The prison architecture, confinement with the inmates, and inmate testing of the new correctional officer force him into various adaptations or styles of supervision and control. Being new to the institutional setting and having no other source of applicable experience, the new officer tends to 'go by the book,' relying heavily on rules and handbooks. In a relatively short time, the officer finds this does not always work so a firm-but-fair style evolves in which he treats inmates predictably and uniformly. Officers using this style fall along a continuum between low/marginally firm but fair and mutually accommodating (symbiosis). This symbiotic relationship is one of give and take that comes of the realization that no institution can function effectively when all or no rules are enforced. Officers who do not achieve this style may be co-opted by the inmates or may tune-out the institutional environment. 2 references.