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GAZETTE
APRIL 1983
If there are those prison officers who believe that they
should not be there, they are in the wrong job. The
sentence of imprisonment is society's sanction and the full
expression of its indignation after that, those in charge
of the job of running the prison are primarily concerned
with the care of human beings who represent only the tip of
the iceberg of deviance and dishonesty. I believe like Sir
Rupert Cross that for too long we have been engaged in the
wrong debate on prisons. The argument
about
rehabilitation has obscured other more important
considerations, among them the effect on prisoners of the
interpersonal contact between officer and prisoner.
Prison Officer as reformer
F e w people doubt that the prison experience can be
demoralising, dehumanising, institutionalising, labelling.
If we cannot reform the least we can do in a Christian,
civilised community is ensure that we do not deform —
that we do not via imprisonment lead to the further
alienation and demoralising of the offender. This is where
the debate should now centre — this is where the prison
officers should now be making their enquiries — how can
they do their job in a human way, in a spirit of concern and
caring rather than paternalism or vindictiveness, so that
the person who is released when his sentence is up goes
back to the community at the very least no worse than
when he c ame in.
The task role for the future is to decide who should go to
prison and how they should be treated while they are there.
I was ama z ed in talking to many ex-prisoners how much
emphasis they placed on the importance of human
relationships within prison. The presence or absence of
close rapport with officers, the warmth or coldness of the
relationship with officers was always the dominant topic of
conversation. Yet this is an area which has been almost
totally neglected by theorists and policy makers. Prison
officers are human beings too. Th ey are more than lockers
and unlockers of doors. Their attitudes can dictate the
success or failure of any correctional programme —
because fundamentally they are the implementers of
policy on the ground. If the regime and structure is
authoritarian or rigid, then the most caring and humane of
officers will find huge obstacles to the development of
relationships with prisoners and despite his overtures the
overall effect of prison will be a brutalising, oppressive and
demoralising one.
If we look at our own system particularly at St. Pats and
Mountjoy one wonders how any experience can be
salutory which confines people to cells for up to eighteen
hours a day — on their own — people who are often
illiterate and used to a high degree of social intercourse;
what an appalling waste of time and resources considering
that the prisoners are matched almost man to man by
officers. Wh y must prison be such an incredibly lonely and
debilitating experience? The resentment and frustration
the prisoner must feel will inevitably be taken out on the
one he most closely identifies with responsibility for those
deprivations — the officers.
That in turn must deeply prejudice the interaction
between the two. It is interesting to note that in the surveys
of prisoners' attitudes to prison staff, almost invariably
friendliness and fairness were characterised as being
important but that these were not regarded as meaning that
the officers concerned were permissive or lenient.
Friendliness need not prejudice control. It ought to be
possible for us to professionalise the role of the traditional
prison officer — custodian by giving him a positive role in
the development of personal and sociable relationships
with prisoners. This role, because it is presently crucial
should be recognised as central and much more important
than the now outmoded notion of rehabilitation.
One does not have to be a professional psychologist to
work out why this role is so vital. An y o ne with a history of
poor self image rejection, ego deflation, who is a member
of the lowest social stratum is likely to be sensitive to
slights whether real or imagined. If those who are in charge
of him are hostile or disparaging the values and morals
they are supposed to represent can hardly seem any more
attractive than their proponents. The likelier thing is of
course that such hostility will actively promote closer
identification with criminals, fellow inmates and criminal
values. Wh e r e as friendliness, humaneness, a concerted
and deliberate concern to preserve the prisoners dignity,
privacy and esteem, while unlikely to cause instant
conversion to an upright way of life, will at the very least
not be a push in the direction of frustration and resentment
which may ultimately compound criminality.
The kind of personality such an approach calls for may
be different from the kind of person recruited traditionally
into the system and again it might not. Apart from
educational qualifications I have no idea what attributes
officers are expected to have and develop. It is up to the
officers themselves to ensure that recruitment procedures
protect the mo ve towards increased professionalism and
that things like height, weight, hearing, educational level
etc., do not play a more important role in selection than
personality,
aptitude,
ability
to
win
voluntary
cooperation, skill in interpersonal relationships.
It seems to me that officers can settle for being eclipsed
by the other professionals who are increasingly moving
into the area of prisoner care — they can take a back seat
and remain largely custodians, for as long as that role lasts,
and is not superceded by even more rehabilitators and
treatment personnel, or they can capitalise on the vital and
crucial role they play within the penal system, by deciding
now how best that role should be developed for themselves
as a profession, for the prisoners in their charge and for the
wider society we all live in. •
•Reprinted by kind permission from Prison Officers Association Magazine 1982.
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