Your textbook identifies five main problems and issues that affect the efforts to professionalize prison work. Explain four of these five problems.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers can include any of the following:

Factors such as low pay, the nature and prestige of the work, and the remote location of many prisons make recruitment of new officers difficult in some jurisdictions.
The general lack of competition for prison jobs in many jurisdictions makes it difficult to impose restrictive criteria for choosing among applicants.
In some jurisdictions, a backlash against affirmative action-which has increased female and minority representation among correctional officers-has resulted in tensions between the genders and races and resentment by some white male officers.
Once officers have been recruited and hired, they need to be trained, and the move toward professionalization has been accompanied by increased attention to training.
Professionalization has been accompanied by increased unionism among officers. Although guard unions can help improve pay levels, job benefits, and work conditions, unions can also divide the superior and subordinate ranks.