Correctional Officers have a very difficult job. For all practical purposes, they are living in the same environment as the prisoners with only the psychological advantage that th

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Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in

Criminal Justice Tenth Edition

Chapter 13 Correctional

Professionals:

Misconduct and

Responses

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Learning Objectives

1. Explain the Zimbardo experiment and what it might

imply for correctional professionals.

2. Describe types of misconduct by correctional officers,

including the typologies of misconduct by Souryal and

McCarthy.

3. Describe types of misconduct by community

corrections professionals.

4. Provide explanations for misconduct.

5. Present some suggestions to decrease misconduct by

correctional professionals.

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

The Zimbardo Experiment

• In the 1970s, a mock prison was set up in the basement of

a building on the grounds of Stanford University.

• College men were arbitrarily assigned to be guards or

inmates.

• Many of the “guard” subjects became brutal toward the

“inmate” subjects.

• Many of the “inmate” subjects became docile and

submissive.

• Behavioral changes in both groups were so profound that

the experiment was canceled after six weeks.

• The study illustrates the profound effect of a prison

experience.

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© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Misconduct and Corruption (1 of 3)

• McCarthy details the following:

– Accepting gratuities for special consideration for

legitimate purposes

– Accepting gratuities for protection of illicit activities

– Mistreatment/harassment or extortion of inmates

– Mismanagement (e.g., prison industries)

– Miscellaneous abuses

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Misconduct and Corruption (2 of 3)

• Typology of corruption as falling into the following

categories:

– Misfeasance: abusing authority for personal gain

(extortion, smuggling, theft)

– Malfeasance: acts that violate authority

– Nonfeasance: acts of omission such as ignoring rule

violations

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Misconduct and Corruption (3 of 3)

• Malicious or purposeful abuse: excessive use of force;

rape and sexual harassment; theft and destruction of

personal property; false disciplinary charges;

intentional denial of medical care; failure to protect;

racial abuse and harassment; excessive and

humiliating strip searches.

• Negligent abuse: negligent denial of medical care;

failure to protect, lack of responsiveness; negligent loss

of property or mail.

• Systemic or budgetary abuse: overcrowding;

inadequate medical care; use of isolation units.

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© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

California

• California’s Department of Corrections described as

corrupt “from the top down”

– Corcoran

– Folsom

– “Green Wall”

– Tanaka

• Incidents of abuse

• Los Angeles County Jail

• Federal consent decree

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Florida

• Prison system is third largest in the country

• Federal courts oversaw state’s prisons for more than

20 years

• James Crosby

• Abusive staff and cover-ups

• Inmate deaths investigated

• The Project on Accountable Justice

• 2015 legislative hearings

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

New York

• Clinton prison

• James Ferro, Leonard Strickland, George Williams,

Kevin Moore, Samuel Harrell

• Only a strong oversight and discipline department has

any chance of changing a culture where abuse of

inmates is accepted.

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© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Treatment Professionals

• Most news items and academic articles describe

misconduct in prisons by correctional officers, but there

are instances where counselors and other treatment

professionals also engage in misconduct.

• Most common issue is not providing the services that

inmates are legally entitled to.

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Community Corrections

• While most news items describe misconduct in prisons,

there are also examples of ethical misconduct and

criminal acts by community corrections professionals.

• Interacting with parolees and probationers in the

community can present officers with opportunities for

corruption.

• In response to scandals, there has been a proposal to

fund body cameras for probation officers to protect

them from allegations that they plan evidence or steal

items from probations’ homes.

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Explanations for Misconduct

Individual Explanations

• Correctional managers attribute misconduct to low pay

and poor screening during hiring.

• Another individual explanation of misconduct is PTSD.

• Many slide into corruption because of a lack of

organizational support for ethical behaviour.

• The personal lives of correctional officers influence

their professional ethics.

• The discretion and authority inherent in the role of

correctional, probation, or parole officer takes maturity

to handle as well as a strong ethical code.

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© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Organizational Explanations

• Abu Ghraib like misconduct:

– Gladiator fights in Corcoran Prison

– The “Tucker telephone” in Arkansas

– Using “dog boys” as live quarry for Texas dog handlers

– Beatings and the use of dogs on prisoners

– Looking the other way while inmates beat and raped a

victim

– Inmates being forced to wear pink underwear as

punishment

– Inmates being stripped as punishment

– Inmates being made to wear black hoods

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Procedural Justice

Procedural justice includes the idea that the perception of

legitimacy (of legal authorities) comes about when the

elements of procedural justice are present and treatment

is fair; specifically:

– Participation (letting people speak),

– Neutrality (governing by rules neutrally and consistently),

– Dignity and respect, and

– Illustrate trustworthiness (authorities are sincerely

concerned with well-being).

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Societal Explanations (1 of 2)

• The community helps to create the correctional

environment by their tacit or direct endorsement of the

informal subcultural norm that inmates deserve less

due process and legal protection than the rest of us.

• When criminal correctional officers are not prosecuted

and simply fired, this provides a message that there

are few costs involved in such misconduct.

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© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Societal Explanations (2 of 2)

• If society wants an ethical correctional system, then we

must demand it and expect that even murderers will be

treated according to the law.

• There is no ethical or legal justification for punishment

that is not the product of formal due process and

restrained by legal guidelines, regardless of what the

inmate has done. No ethical system supports such

conduct; even under utilitarianism, the cost to justice

and due process is just too high.

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Responses to Corruption

• Generate a strong anti-corruption policy to include:

– Proactive measures such as mechanisms to investigate

and detect wrongdoing

– Reduced opportunities for corruption

– Screening of employees using state-of-the-art

psychological tools

– Improved working conditions

– Providing good role models in the form of supervisors

and administrators who follow the appropriate code of

ethics

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Reducing the “Culture of Violence”

• The Commission on Safety and Abuse in American Prisons

developed a comprehensive list of recommendations to reduce

the “culture of violence,” including the following:

– Improve staffing levels, hiring, and training

– Provide independent oversight for complaints and investigations of

misconduct

– Create a national database of violent incidents and misconduct

– Increase access to the courts by repealing or amending the Prison

Litigation Reform Act

– Increase the level of criminal prosecution of wrongdoers (perhaps

using federal prosecutions)

– Strengthen professional standards

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© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Civility of a Correctional Institution

Souryal believe that the following have an influence:

• level of education required for hire;

• the amount of in-service training officers receive;

• the policies regarding employees who act in unethical

ways; and

• the presence of a professional association or union that

can effectively monitor the agency’s practices.

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Wright’s Principles

• Wright offered seven principles as a guide for how

administrators and supervisors should treat employees:

– Safety

– Fair treatment

– Due process

– Freedom of expression

– Privacy

– Participation in decision making

– Information

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

How to Prevent Stress and Burnout

• Burrell suggested methods relating to probation:

– probation (and parole) organizations should provide clear direction

– manage proactively, establish priorities if there are high workloads

– ensure stability and constancy

– be consistent in expectations

– manage with fairness, enforce accountability

– delegate authority

– provide proper resources

– maintain communication

– allow participative decision making

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© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Ethics Training Program

• Treating all staff fairly and impartially

• Promoting based on true merit

• Showing no prejudice

• Leading by example

• Developing a clear mission statement

• Creating a positive code of ethics (a list of do’s, rather than

don’ts)

• Creating a culture that promotes performance, not seniority

• Soliciting staff input on new policies

• Being respectful

• Letting the word out that upper management cares about

ethics

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

A New Era? Procedural Justice/Restorative

Justice

• America has one of the world’s highest rates of

incarceration.

• High recidivism rates suggest that prisons and other

deterrence mechanisms are not particularly effective in

reducing crime.

• Some advocate a new approach to crime and

punishment.

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

The Prison–Industrial Complex

• Prisons provide jobs and profits to legions of

companies and people.

• A major shift may be spurred by the economic burden

that the penal harm era has generated.

• Pendulum may have swung too far toward severe

prison terms, especially toward drug offenders.

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© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Peacemaking Corrections and Wholesight

• Peacemaking corrections offers an approach of care

and of wholesight, or looking at what needs to be done

with both the heart and the head.

• Both restorative justice and peacemaking corrections

are consistent with the ethics of care.

• Might be considered “feminine” models of justice

because of the emphasis on needs rather than

retribution.

• Programs under the rubric of restorative justice include

sentencing circles, family group counseling, and victim-

offender mediation.

© 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.

Discussion Questions

1. Would you participate in the Zimbardo experiment?

Which role do you think you could play more easily

without compromising your ethical outlook?

2. Can you imagine and scenario when you might be

inclined to aid a prison’s escape, as the staff did in the

2015 escape from Clinton prison?

3. Do you agree with Dzur and Wertheimer that was is

good for the individual is good for everyone else?

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