Gender and Prison Work: The Experience of Female Provincial Correctional Officers in Canada
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Author | Rosemary Ricciardelli,Laura McKendy |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032885520956394 |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2020
Article
The Prison Journal
2020, Vol. 100(5) 617 –639
Gender and Prison
© 2020 SAGE Publications
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885520956394
DOI: 10.1177/0032885520956394
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of Female Provincial
Correctional Officers
in Canada
Rosemary Ricciardelli1 and Laura McKendy1
Abstract
Drawing on the accounts of female correctional officers working in Canadian
prisons, we explore how gender identity influences the work orientations and
social relationships of female officers and their interpretations of working with
male and female prisoners. We suggest that female officers tend to pursue
correctional work in a way that incorporates traits culturally associated with
femininity and that relies on gendered understandings of prisoners’ dispositions
and needs. In general, female officers’ accounts suggest that feminine identity
operates as both a liability and currency in the context of prison work, albeit
for reasons that vary across women and men’s prison.
Keywords
occupational work culture, correctional officer culture, gender and
corrections, prison studies
Introduction
In the study of prisoner experiences, the topic of gender within prison spaces
has received robust analytical attention. Particularly for men, prison is viewed
1Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, Canada
Corresponding Author:
Rosemary Ricciardelli, Department of Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland,
AA4066, 230 Elizabeth Avenue, St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7, Canada.
Email: rricciardell@mun.ca
618
The Prison Journal 100(5)
as a highly-gendered space, where broader patriarchal norms and qualities of
traditional masculinities are structurally threatened yet simultaneously (re)
enacted with great vehemence (Bandyopadhyay, 2006; Jewkes, 2005;
Ricciardelli, 2014, 2017). In both classic and contemporary accounts, gen-
dered ideologies have been found to structure the very nature of prison culture
and the penal experience (Evans & Wallace, 2008; Haney, 2011; Ricciardelli,
2015; Sykes, 1958; Toch, 1998). The experience of women in penal institu-
tions, however, has remained on the academic periphery in recent years; in
particular, few scholars have studied the positions of female correctional offi-
cers since the seminal works of Zimmer in the 1980s and Britton in the 1990s
(Britton, 1995; Zimmer, 1987). The limited Canadian scholarship on the topic
of occupational culture and gendered experiences among correctional workers
has produced diverse findings. Illustratively, one recent study emphasizes the
continuation of an androcentric work culture that precipitates structural sex-
ism and gender inequality among staff (Burdett et al., 2018), while another
points to the similarities that mark the experiences of male and female cor-
rectional officers (COs) (Ricciardelli, 2019). Consequently, the question of
how gender norms structure the prison experience for women working in pris-
ons remains somewhat ambiguous. Given that the prison has long-been under-
stood as a hyper-masculine space, where the classic tenets of patriarchy
organize and structure social relations, the particular experience of women
within these spaces is worthy of greater analytical attention.
Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with female COs in Eastern
and Central Canadian provincial prisons, in the current article, we examine
the gendered experience of prison work from the point of view of female COs
working in institutions that house or have housed men or women. More spe-
cifically, we analyze how gender identity shapes the work orientations and
social relationships of female COs. We show that their accounts suggest that
femininity is understood as both a liability and currency in the context of
prison work, paralleling the earlier findings of Kissel and Katsampes (1980).
Staff-Prisoner Relations and Occupational Work
Culture
Researchers have found that COs play a significant role in prisoners’ experi-
ences of incarceration (Guenther & Guenther, 1974; Jackson & Ammen,
1996; Liebling et al., 2010; McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2019). As they are
responsible for the custody, control and care of prisoners, often for extended
periods of time, officers may establish social relationships with prisoners that
are more complex, versatile, long-lasting, and even familiar than those estab-
lished by many other criminal justice professionals (Crawley, 2004, 2013;
Ricciardelli and McKendy
619
Crawley & Crawley, 2008). Furthermore, as COs carry out their work duties,
they must understand and navigate the prison climate, which, as Crawley
(2004, 2013) notes, is a highly emotional one riddled with care but inter-
sected with control. In addition to bearing responsibility for persons who are
held against their will, officers may bear witness to the ongoing legal, finan-
cial, emotional, and psychological struggles that shape prisoners’ lives.
Hence, for COs, doing prison work is not “guarding”; it is navigating inter-
personal dynamics and human needs in an emotionally-charged work and
living space.
How officers approach correctional work, and the nature of the officer-
prisoner relationship, of course, vary quite significantly (Crewe & Liebling,
2012; Crewe et al., 2015; Ricciardelli, 2016). Internationally, scholars show
that officers tend to have negative views of prisoners, who are thought to be
sneaky, untrustworthy, and not dependable (Chang & Zastrow, 1976), incor-
rigible (Farmer, 1977; Plecas & Maxim, 1991; Poole & Regoli, 1980), as well
as at fault for their current predicament (Nacci & Kane, 1984). However,
officers who stray from a strict punishment-delivery and control mandate,
and who forge meaningful relationships with prisoners, can have a positive
influence on the quality of prison life (Crewe & Liebling, 2012; Ricciardelli,
2016). Researchers have identified different factors that influence the work
orientations of officers and their views toward and treatment of prisoners,
including personal factors such as an officer’s personal values (Crewe &
Liebling, 2012) and organizational factors such as occupational responsibili-
ties (Jacobs & Kraft, 1978), and work conditions and environments (Jurik,
1985). Factors that cross organizational and personal realms have also been
found to shape officers’ dispositions. For example, occupational security, job
satisfaction, and role conflict have been linked with philosophical views on
correctional work (Jurik, 1985; Jurik et al., 1987; Whitehead & Lindquist,
1989). Prior work experience has also been found to shape officers’ views,
with COs tending, in select studies, to become more punitive over time
(Plecas & Maxim, 1987).
Occupational culture is undoubtedly another factor that shapes officer
work orientations and the dynamics between staff and prisoners. Much like
prisoners themselves are organized around an informal culture encompassing
a set of interrelated norms, roles, and values (Sykes, 1958), COs too operate
within a socio-cultural milieu, where unofficial norms for behavior may bear
as much significance as formal workplace rules. On the topic of occupational
culture among COs, some noted that correctional work cultures are often
marked by stereotypes that reduce women to the perceived essential qualities
of femininity, such as weakness and emotionality; thus, by virtue of their
gender, women are often viewed as being less able than men to embody the
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The Prison Journal 100(5)
quintessential, largely hyper-masculine, traits associated with the CO role
(Britton, 2003; Hemmens et al., 2002; Stohr et al., 1992). Within the highly
gender work environment of prison, the perceived occupational abilities of
COs have been found to be interpreted within a gendered lens that credits the
efforts of male over female employees (Britton, 2003; Farnworth, 1992;
Haney, 2011; Ricciardelli, 2017; Toch, 1998). As such, a gender-based “orga-
nizational logic” is thought to shape prison work across diverse carceral
spaces, impacting experiences of work-related stress and of gender equality
for male and female officers (Britton, 2003; Farnworth, 1992; Jurik, 1988;
Zimmer, 1987). In a study of prisoner and staff experiences in a UK immigra-
tion removal center, for example, Bosworth and Slade (2014, p. 171) found
that COs, of any gender, must account for professional as well as cultural
understanding of gender as they manage their gender presentation when
interacting with prisoners and each other.
Gender stereotyping is undeniably embedded in how a women’s presence
in occupational roles is experienced by female officers and interpreted by
their male colleagues (Britton, 2003; Hemmens et al., 2002; Stohr et al.,
1992). For example, Zimmer (1987) found that male officers tended to view
their female counterparts as physically and mentally weak, lacking occupa-
tional capabilities, and vulnerable to sexual misconduct with prisoners. More
recently, Hemmens et al. (2002) found that some male COs had concerns
about the ability of women to carry out the occupational role of a CO, sug-
gesting gender stereotyping remains at play. Such findings are, of course, not
surprising given the history of discrimination faced by female COs (Kissel &
Katsampes, 1980), as well as the paternalistic attitudes that shape patriarchal
and paramilitary prison...
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