Memoirs of a Guard-Researcher: Deconstructing the Games Inmates Play Behind the Prison Walls

• In Event: Relationships between Correctional Staff and Inmates

Abstract

Recent media reports have attempted to shed light on correctional officers
who end their careers in disgrace for either having sexual relationships with
prisoners or for smuggling contraband into correctional facilities. In this
article, I take an autoethnographic approach, reflecting on my seven years
as a “guard-researcher” and demonstrate through real-life examples how
inmates identify the weak links among prison employees, subtly feel them
out, and then untiringly persist in establishing these inappropriate relationships.
This article shows how seemingly benign gestures of inmates are
actually calculated moves taken to gain leverage and exploit their marks,
the weak correctional staff members, who fall for these tricks.

Author

• Robert M. Worley, Lamar University