“This collection is the kick-start to the kind of important global discussion that is needed.”

 — Frank J. Porporino, Criminal Justice Consultant; ICPA Group Chair, Research and Development Network

“This outstanding collection shines the spotlight on the most overlooked, but surely most important professionals in the ‘correctional’ equation.” 

—Shadd Maruna, Professor of Criminology; author of Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild their Lives

This edited collection brings together academics, lawyers, civil servants, and researchers working in the human rights NGO sector, to explore the work and role of prison officers around the world. Each chapter offers a distinctive perspective on the work of prison officers within localised socio-economic and criminal justice contexts, to provide a unique overview and insight into the realities and complexities of the role through accessible scholarly interpretations of their work. The aim of the book is to advance knowledge and understanding of the crucial role that prison officers occupy within carceral systems. The collection has widespread applicability with relevance beyond academia into criminal justice practice and policy internationally.

Helen Arnold is Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of East Anglia, UK.

Matthew Maycock is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Monash University, Australia.

Rosemary Ricciardelli is Professor and Research Chair in Safety, Security, and Wellness at the Fisheries and Marine Institute at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.

“Prison officers can be both heroes and victims of our penal systems around the world. Though typically unappreciated, misunderstood, and unfairly stereotyped, they carry the load of implementing particular penal philosophies on-the-ground and adjusting their exercise of power to do it relatively peacefully.  In large measure, prison officers create prison environments.  The values and personal qualities they bring to their work shapes the character of the prison experience, for both the kept and the keepers, making that experience one that is mostly ordered and safe, or chaotic and scary, constructive and hopeful, or damaging and dehumanizing.  In thoughtful scholarly detail, this edited collection, with examples of some excellent ethnographic studies from around the world, helps us begin to understand how, when and why this happens, and helps us appreciate that what prison officers do onto others is often reflective of what we do (or don’t do)onto them.  

To arrive at truly rehabilitative prison environments, figuring out what works best in influencing positive prison officer cultures is perhaps more important than policy, programs, professional input or even leadership. This collection is the kick start to the kind of important global discussion that is needed.”  (Frank J. Porporino, Criminal Justice Consultant; ICPA Group Chair, Research and Development Network)

“The task of ‘correcting’ those in prisons and helping them turn their often fractured lives around is probably as complex and difficult as launching a rocket into space. Yet, unlike rocket science, hardly any resources are devoted to developing the social science of ‘corrections.’ This outstanding collection represents a potential turning point in this regard, shining the spotlight on the most overlooked, but surely most important professionals in the ‘correctional’ equation.” (Shadd Maruna, Professor of Criminology; author of Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild their Lives)

"Prison Officers offers a unique global perspective on a little-known and often-caricatured occupational group. It reveals the role of national moral economies and local institutional cultures with regards to punishment, fairness, law and rights in the way correctional officers act toward inmates, colleagues and management. It is a major contribution to the sociology of prison." (Didier Fassin is professor at the Collège de France and the author of Prison Worlds. An Ethnography of the Carceral Condition (Polity).

Presents a much-needed update from diverse perspectives Advances understanding about the crucial role that correctional/prison officers play within penal systems Includes chapters from the Global South

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