Understanding Who is Hired to Work in U.S. Prisons and Why it Matters: A Call for Research

ABSTRACT

Despite the longstanding issues within the correctional officer occupation (e.g., high turnover, absenteeism), decades of research have tended to focus solely on the negative consequences of correctional officer work, rather than on the unique personal characteristics of the officers themselves. This omission is surprising as it is highly probable that each person experiences correctional work differently, with variation potentially hinging on the unique views and characteristics individuals bring with them to the job. Just as the “importation model” of prison adaptation recognizes the importance of pre-prison characteristics in explaining offender behavior, we argue that the unique personal experiences and social histories correctional officers import with them might shape the way they react to prison work. Thus, by thematically, descriptively, and multivariately examining three theoretically germane pre-prison work characteristics of 673 pre-service correctional officers (career motivations, attitudes toward prisoners, occupational histories), this call for research aims to raise awareness of the less studied factors within the correctional officer literature. Understanding the backgrounds and attitudes of newly hired correctional officers may potentially assist in the recruitment and retainment of these crucial employees in the prison system both in the United States and abroad.

KEYWORDS:

• Correctional Officers
• Prisons
• Attitudes
• Career Motivations
• Occupational Histories

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Note that we use the terms “trainee,” “pre-service correctional officer,” and “newly hired correctional officer” interchangeably throughout the manuscript. We use these terms to mean an individual that has been hired by a state department of correction and is currently enrolled at a state training academy for basic training to become a correctional officer.

2. Note that no imputation or transformations were used for the analyses.

3. Note that no imputation or transformations were used for the analyses.

4. Note that this percentage corresponds to those who came into the current position directly from the military. Although most states target military networks (Burton et al., 2018), it appears that the number of individuals working as correctional officers that have military experience is relatively low. For example, Logan et al. (2022) report that 15% of their sample had prior military experience. In our sample, slightly more than 10% had some prior military experience in their occupational histories.