Workplace corruption among correctional employees can occur in many forms. These forms may include sexual involvement with inmates or their families to pass on favors to the inmates, smuggling of contraband, as well as abuse and oppression of prisoners. It must be emphasized here that the corruption is not singularly localized to the employees such as the correctional officers. In fact, administrators have in the recent past been implicated in the misappropriation of funds or sexual involvement with an inmate. Other cohorts subject to corruption include counselors, teachers, maintenance workers, law librarians, as well as other staff with junior positions (Pittaro, 2017).
The risk is significantly increased by both internal and external pressures that push the employees beyond the line of being law-abiding citizens to law-breakers. According to statistics, approximately four correctional officers are linked to the escape of at least two inmates serving time for murder in New York (Fuchs, 2015). This proffers the degree of susceptibility the correctional workers are exposed to, edifying their vulnerability. In this accord, various motivating or risk factors propel the correctional workers to be tempted into corrupt practices legally referred to as malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance. In essence, most of the factors linked to the phenomenon are observed along the same plane of criminological theory as that modeled for criminals overall.
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A major risk factor that ultimately leads to the temptation of undertaking corrupt practices is the low or poor pay of the correctional employees. According to expert opinion on the matter, the poor pay coupled with the low hiring standards in the American correctional system makes the employees more susceptible to corruption as opposed to other employees in the justice system. Fuchs further attests to this fact by asserting that the situation is made worse due to the fact that the employees, especially the guards, undertake tough and treacherous jobs that proffer not only a little or no compensation but also recognition and any hope for advancement or promotion. The corrections system has often been referred to as the ugly stepchild of the justice system, and as such, the workers in the system are forgotten, which provides the platform for corruption to thrive.
An additional risk or tempting factor is the negative milieu of the correctional facilities and the system in general. In essence, the correctional workers constantly have to cope with the threats and risks of physical harm or work with already corrupt staff members. As such, the compounded stressors push the workers to the edge thereby tempting them into defaulting to unethical behavior whereby the ability to distinguish illegal from legal or right from wrong disappears. Humans are social creatures and as such, friendship and bonds are meant to crop up in the correctional setting between an employee and an inmate. Consequently, the friendship bond might coerce the correctional worker into offering special treatment to one or more inmates at the expense of the others. As such, the worker might smuggle contraband and other illegal merchandise into the facility for the inmates as a favor for their friendship.
In as much as the situation seems exacerbated, there are fundamental measures that correctional agencies can put in place to curb the severity of the situation. For instance, in the spirit of combating the smuggling of contraband into the prison facilities, correctional agencies can deploy K-9 patrols at regular shifts during the day and at night. In addition, the implementation of body scanners at the entrances and exits of the facility would be materialistic in curbing the issue. The agencies can as well invest in security cameras that could strategically be placed all over the facility to enhance monitoring, and in the long run, deter corruption. Cases of embezzled funds should also be pursued to full conclusion ending in prosecution and ultimately conviction as in the case of Norman Seabrook. Perhaps the most forward-thinking solution is retraining the workers, especially the officers. This will instill the proper morals as well as the sense of duty to the state and community to perform their jobs ethically.
References
Fuchs, E. (2015). America's prison guards are the 'ugly stepchildren' of the criminal justice system. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-prison-guards-corrupt-2015-6?IR=T
Pittaro, M. (2017). Why Some Correctional Employees Are Corrupt. Public Safety. Retrieved from https://inpublicsafety.com/2017/02/why-some-correctional-employees-are-corrupt/
