Introduction

• Published date: 01 June 2000
• Date: 01 June 2000
• Author: MARY K. STOHR,CRAIG HEMMENS
• DOI: 10.1177/0032885500080002001
• Subject Matter: Articles

THE PRISON JOURNAL / June 2000INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

MARY K. STOHR

CRAIG HEMMENS

Correctional institutions were founded in part to control the deviance of

others. Yet ironically, and in a strange tautological sense, throughout their

history, jails and prisons have been bedeviled by the immoral, unprofes-

sional, or unethical behavior of their own staff. For some staff, the tempta-

tions that power presents in closed, “total institutions” have been too great,

and they have been too human to resist its lure. As a remedy,western correc-

tional institutions have undergonea series of reform movements over the past

200 years that have focused on the eradication of unethical behavior and the

reinforcement of professionalism. The writings featured in this issue might

be seen as a contribution to that ongoing professionalism movement.

We decided to promote and edit a special ethics-dedicated issue of The

Prison Journal for several reasons. First, we believethat there is not enough

discussion among correctional scholars and practitioners about ethical

behavior at either a macro or a micro level. Second, most of the best work on

ethics in criminal justice has focused on the behavior of police officers,their

role, and their organization. Most of the books on ethics have had a police

focus, with at most a chapter or two devoted to corrections. Articles devoted

to ethics topics in practitioner publications are not likely to reach academics,

nor are academically prepared articles on the topic typically read by

practitioners.

We also thought the topic would be timely because the crisis in ethics in

corrections continues. Although great strides in professionalizing correc-

tions have been made, the much discussed incarceration explosion, the

declining oversight role of courts in jail and prison operation, the privatiza-

tion movement, and the shortage of qualified staff who will work for rela-

tively low wages in correctional institutions all portend dark days ahead for

jails or prisons striving to instill and reinforce an ethical code of behavior in

the workplace.

These articles represent a point of departure for discussion. The percep-

tions of jail and prison workers vis-à-vis ethical behavior is discussed in the

Stohr,Hemmens, Kifer, and Schoeler piece titled “We Know It, WeJust Have

THE PRISON JOURNAL, Vol. 80 No. 2, June 2000 123-125

© 2000 Sage Publications, Inc.

123