Race and Correctional Officers' Punitive Attitudes Toward Treatment Programs for Inmates

• NCJ Number: 162940
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 24 Issue: 2 Dated: (1996) Pages: 153-166
• Author(s): J E Jackson; S Ammen
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 14 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Earlier version of article prepared for presentation at the 44th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, 1992, New Orleans

Annotation

Because attitudes of correctional officers represent a crucial variable in how the prison system interacts with inmates, this study examined the recent inclusion of minorities into the traditionally Caucasian male correctional officer's world within Texas prisons.

Abstract

Data were collected in 1990 as part of a longitudinal analysis of correctional officer attitudes toward inmate treatment programs. The survey was based on a systematic random sample of 10 percent of all uniformed correctional officers employed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Institutional Division. Of 1,114 correctional officers in the total sample, 476 (47.6 percent) responded. Results showed that attitudinal variations among correctional officer attitudes were significantly related to race, i.e., attitudes of minority correctional officers appeared to be statistically different from those of Caucasian male correctional officers. An interesting finding was that black correctional officers were less punitive over time in their attitudes than white correctional officers. 57 references and 6 tables