Mr. Santos,

In your article entitled “They’re Prison Guards Not Correctional Officers” you indicate that prison guards are not correctional officers, due to the fact that prison guards merely secure the prison rather than “correct” the offender to law-abiding citizens.

My question to you is that do you believe that prison guards are actually correcting the prisoners through disciplinary actions, by that I mean removing every means of freedom.
Also, I understand incentives are created to encourage prisoners to actually want to become better people but if incentives only promote early release for the prisoners then why institute incentives? The real purpose then would be to leave early and not reflect on their real purpose why they got incarcerated. Please let me know how you view that.

I really appreciate your work and your contributions to society. I am currently reading your book and you have me with eyes wide open in shock. It is incredible to read the things you have experienced and the people you have run into.

Thank you,
L.Temblador
CRJU major-CSULB

P.S- You have a wonderful wife; she truly loves you and cares about you.

In your article, “They’re Prison Guards, Not Correctional Officers,” you take the stance that prison guards do little to attempt any type of corrective behavior upon the offender. While I agree with your position, I believe the dangerous institutions requires prison guards to behave in the manner in which you describe. Any type of correctional behavior couldn’t be applied if the facility itself is not secure.

Can correctional treatment be applied in a sub-culture like prison where violence is prone to happen on a day to day basis? It just seems hard for me to comprehend trying to be a correctional officer in a violent institution where the constant threat of violence preempts any type of positive corrective behavior. It would make more sense to act like a prison guard to protect yourself and the facility from the violent surroundings. Therefore, do you believe it is possible for a prison guard to make the leap to a correctional officer when the security of the institution remains the top priority?

M. Browning
CSULB STUDENT – CRIM MAJOR

p.s. I’d like to thank you for taking the time to field all of these questions from students like me. Its hard to get an idea of the prison sub-culture from a textbook, but your book opened my eyes to things I never would have thought occurred in prison. Thanks again!

Michael responded to your questions here:

http://prisonnewsblog.com/2009/03/prison-guards-interfere-with-corrections/

Best wishes,
Carole Santos

Thank you!
Noel

Reading your article, “They’re Prison Guards, Not Correctional Officers” got me thinking. You stated that the guards perfom tasks such as searching for contraband, questioning and investigating prisoners or even searching prisoner’s mail, and that this is part of what makes them prison guards, as an outsider I would think that duties like these are necessary in order to avoid conflict within the jail. If it is tasks like these that are done to promote order that make the guards, prison guards and not correctional officers what kind of duty and policy changes would you enact in order to consider them correctional officers. Also, if the policy changes that you would make are more lenient, how do you think prisoner’s behavior would change? Would their behavior change for the postive or negative?

Thank you!
Katie A.
CSULB Crim Major