The Two Faces of the Correctional Role: An Exploration of the Value of the Correctional Role Instrument

Abstract

Correctional scholars once portrayed correctional offenders as hacks, little interested in the welfare of the inmates they supervised. Later researchers related how this conception of the officer as hack failed to take into account and explain the human service functions in which many officers are engaged. A role instrument was developed and administered to staff at a medium-security prison to measure the extent to which today’s officers identify with the old hack or the newer human service conception of their work. Analysis of the data indicates that the instrument appears useful in measuring correctional role orientation, as the alpha is .84. In addition, examination of responses to individual items indicates that selected sociodemographic characteristics are related to perceptions of the correctional role.