Blog #18

According to Britton, all prison officers are required to take the same training and tests in order to begin working. The same training applies to officers who work in men’s prisons and officers who work in women’s prisons. All employees complete refresher training in order to maintain their positions. Federal training is different from state training, as state training is less standardized. One officer interviewed by Britton believes that federal training is better than state training because they have better facilities and more money. However, most people feel that the real training happens on the job rather than the classroom.

The perceptions of the training received does not vary greatly between females and males. The training policies are gender-neutral which have still tended to perpetuate masculinity. Some white male guards have refused to train minorities or women. Britton argues that training also exaggerates the potential violence of the job because the programs are taught my guards who seek delight in telling horror stories about prison violence. Some people get scared and leave the program because of this. Because of this type of training, the occupational masculinity of the correctional officer is emphasized. Many men also are unsure of whether women can actually handle the job due to their lesser size and physical strength. Since our culture is a masculine one, it creates sexism in a supposedly neutral institution. Women face challenges that are not face by men such as, harassment by male inmates and resistance, exclusion, discrimination by male colleagues and supervisors (Britton p. 100). One woman officer feels that they should have a female officer as part of the training programs to tell the trainees what to really expect on the job. The training process is generally directed in scenarios where the officers are males and the inmates are males, which may cause the women to be less prepared for the job than men once the training is completed. Therefore, this type of training also leaves officers unprepared for working in a women’s prison, which tend to be very different from men’s prisons. Dealing with women inmates is very different from dealing with male inmates and officers are unprepared for this. Also, the skills it takes to deal with women inmates are often unnoticed and unappreciated. The generic standard of training is men’s institutions with male inmates (Britton p. 104). So while these training programs are intended to be neutral, they ultimately reinforce the masculinity of the job by failing to acknowledge the reality of the job and the various situations for which people may be working it.