The Paradox of Restrictive Housing Work: How Correctional Officers Navigate Feeling Safe and Unsafe in the Most Secure Units

• In Event: Correctional Officers’ Perceptions of Safety and Security: Implications for Prison Policy and Practice

Abstract

A growing literature documents not just the dangers of incarceration for people in prison but the dangers of the institution for people working there. However, comparatively few studies focus specifically on correctional staff working in restrictive housing units. In this paper, we ask how staff experience working in restrictive housing, particularly focusing in on how they define, navigate, and enact safety in the highly restrictive environment of solitary confinement. Drawing on interviews with line staff working in five different restrictive housing units in one state, we argue that staff working in these environments often experience what we term a safety paradox. We use qualitative data to explore more about this contradictory relationship between how respondents perceive and experience safety, as well as how it influences their interactions with the other people working and living in these units, and how it informs their lives outside of work. Implications of these findings for future analyses of how to improve the wellbeing of people who live and work in restrictive housing units, specifically, and for correctional reform, more generally, are also discussed.

Authors

• Gabriela Gonzalez, San Jose State University

• Natalie Pifer, University of Rhode Island

• Melissa Barragan, Cal Poly Pomona

• Dallas Augustine, San Jose State University

• Justin Strong, San Jose State University

• Kelsie Chesnut, Vera Institute of Justice

• Keramet Reiter, University of California, Irvine

• Rebecca Tublitz, University of California, Irvine / CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance