Professionalism

One of the most famous studies on the prison context was the Stanford Prison Experiment, run by Dr. Philip Zimbardo in the 1960s. Zimbardo's experiment, as well as Milgram's obedience experiment and other similar studies, looked at how humans responded in situations where some people have authority over others. World War II and the Nazi regime ended in the 1940s, but our questions lingered; how did "normal" people become willing participants in the kinds of artocities we saw happening in Nazi Germany? 

Zimbardo's experiment helped us understand that human beings don't have to be monsters to be contributors to monstrous social situations. Zimbardo's experiment- the guards and the inmates both- were college students. They were selected precisely because they were normal, and were randomly assigned to the guard and inmate groups. All of them were pretty normal, straightforward people. And yet, the whole thing was shut down in a matter of days. Inmates were experiencing panic attacks and other signs of distress. Guards were acting sadistically. Zimbardo himself says that he didn't really see how bad things were until someone from outside the situation pointed it out. 

So what happened? To give a somewhat oversimplified answer: people aren't good at monitoring and moderating their own behavior in situations where they have power over other people and/or where they are functioning in a hierarchical authority structure. Milgram and Zimbardo both came to this conclusion. 

We saw it more recently in the Abu Ghraib situation as well. The soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib were soldiers in the US military, which provides a fair amount of training. However, the Abu Ghraib personnel were trained for combat support, and were never trained in "internment and resettlement"- guarding detainees or prisoners. Also, the rules weren't especially clear about what was appropriate behavior in the detention context. So when the Abu Ghraib pictures hit the US media there was a fairly large popular uproar, and the soldiers themselves reported being caught completely off-guard by that. They had no real way to know what was or was not known by the US population in general, and felt they were doing what was being asked of them under the rules of enhanced interrogation. 

Overall, the research tells us that human beings- not just "bad" human beings, but ANY human beings"- have a hard time keeping track of behavioral expectations and decision-making perspective in contexts where there is hierarchical authority and where people have power over others. That's why professionalism- the knowledge, training, and ongoing maintainence of occupational standards- is essential for corrections. Every single day our correctional officials are asked to function effectively and ethically in those very contexts. Professionalism allows correctional personnel to keep track of that problem, and at the same time to learn the best and most effective approaches for correctional supervision. Professional associations, professional standards, certification processes, continuing training and education, and all the other facets of professionalism are absolutely essential to a responsible and effective system of correctional supervision.