blog 20

I have a new female role model, her name is Dora Schriro. I have heard of her before but since this is my first class that really takes a look at prisons in depth I am finally getting to know about her and other females in corrections. The article about her in Phoenix Magazine defiantly fixates on her being female; it almost plays second fiddle to the amazing things she has accomplished. Several times they say she had to fight against the old cowboy way of the Arizona corrections department and that many thought she was too soft. Schriro has restorative justice beliefs which do not sit well with many Arizona residences since we are a south west state with the death penalty. Schriro is a woman in a male dominated field and she faces the same prejudices most women face especially Janet Napolitano.
The hostage situation defiantly showed what many female officers fear, the male guard held hostage was beaten but then let go*. Whereas Lois Fraley was raped and held hostage for fifteen days not only was her ordeal more horrific but she suffers mentally and emotionally from it as well. The crisis confirmed that women can be put in more dangerous situations while working in prisons but also that officers need more training and that the prisons need to be run professionally. I do not think the situation would have played out better for the officers if Fraley was a man in fact I think it would have been worse. Men feel more intimidated by other men and would have more than likely shot a male officer. The ‘John Wayne’ approach with inmates would have made the hostage situation more violent and probably more of a disaster.
Male and female prisons have different rules and structures due to gender differences and sexuality. Men the more aggressive, violent, tactical inmates have no privacy, stricter rules and policies, and are not given exception to a female officer. Female inmates are usually treated with a little bit more dignity (sometimes) when it comes to privacy from male guards. These are another example of why training should not be gender neutral gearing towards male inmates/guards. Men sexuality is not seen as a problem and have had rules, regulations, and even job duties geared to help them avoid the least desirable duty of pat downs and stationary positions in the prisons. Female sexuality is a huge issue in prisons because they are seen for their gender or sex. Male inmates are more likely to sexually harass them this is seen not as a problem for the female officer but a problem because the female officer, these issues and ways of dealing with them are sexist and prevent women from moving up in the correctional field. Even when female officers earn their promotions it is seen in the eyes of their co workers as favoritism, it seems that no matter what women do in this field supervisors and colleagues seem to have a negative explanation for it.
It does not supervise me that African American male officers are the least satisfied with their work environment. Officers use derogatory language with inmates frequently usually using words ‘describing’ their race. Who makes up a obscene amount of inmates in the United States prison system? African Americans. Female African American women deal with the most job stress that also is not surprising; they are hit with sexism and racism every day at work. The environment they are in daily to provide for themselves and family is toxic and stressful in general they have to deal with harassment from inmates and fellow employees as well as trying to erase her gender and race as much as possible while on the job. Since many ‘white’ male officers feel that affirmative action makes for poor employees I wonder would they still feel that way about qualified employees of different races, or do they believe that ‘filling quota’ is just a numbers game. White male officers still have the best picks for promotions and positions at the prison and still make up more than half f the employees. I can see why it is more stressful being a women or a minority, it is extremely hard to get anywhere in the system if you aren’t the majority. Sadly, that is how it is with a lot of minority inmates that cannot afford representation and racism plays a part in their sentencing. Co workers that have the upper hand are usually already under the impression that they have a unspoken right, they treat inmates poorly because of their status and also I believe race/sex plays a part in that and they treat their co workers poorly, because they can. The system does not do enough for women and men to compete fairly with one another in the prison work place.