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Browsing by Author "Schultz, William"

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    Canadian correctional officers, institutionalization, and the social impacts of prison work
    (2024) Stevens, Leanne; Schultz, William
    Researchers often use institutionalization to explain the psychological impact of imprisonment on incarcerated people, but little is known about how institutionalization processes may impact other actors in prison, such as correctional officers (COs). New research consistently describes prison work as a damaging experience, something that significantly impacts short and long-term health outcomes of COs. A broad reading of the institutionalization literature demonstrates remarkable similarities to CO mental health research, raising questions about whether institutionalization frameworks can help us understand prison work. We draw on 131 interviews with Canadian COs to examine this possibility, and find that COs draw broad institutionalization narratives framing prison work as a distinctly harmful experience with lasting impacts on their personalities, identities, and relationships. We conclude by discussing the implications of using institutionalization as a means of understanding correctional work.
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    Correctional officers and the ongoing health implications of prison work
    (2025) Schultz, William; Ricciardeli, Rosemary
    Correctional Service Providers (CSP), including Correctional officers (COs), are key front-line figures in prisons globally, with responsibility for a wide range of daily prison operations. Over the past decade, research on prison staff has massively grown. However, the portrait this scholarship draws is concerning. Research focusing on the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of prison staff consistently paints a picture of a deeply unhealthy group of people, with above-average levels of physical health concerns. Likewise, recent literature suggests correctional employees are facing a mental health crisis, with high prevalence of mental health disorders and self-harming behaviors, even when compared to other law enforcement personnel. Further, scholars have expressed concerns about the social and cultural wellbeing of staff, factors that directly impact daily prison operations. We conduct a broad overview of the literature on correctional worker health and wellness, identifying key themes and major areas of concern. We conclude by identifying key challenges and proposing areas for future research.
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    Correctional officers and the use of force as an organizational behavior
    (2023) Schultz, William
    During the past 30 years, bureaucratic managerialism has reshaped how prison staff maintain order. Policies and graduated disciplinary models have replaced coercive methods, reducing disciplinary use of force by prison staff against incarcerated people. Managerialism, however, disguises deep problems in the interpretation and enforcement of use-of-force policies. Drawing on 131 semistructured interviews with Canadian correctional officers (COs), I show how managers and prison staff interpret and negotiate policies to justify using force to maintain order. Although COs frame policies and management supervision as significant checks on their actions, they also suggest that inconsistencies in policy interpretation and implementation facilitate certain kinds of use-of-force decisions, which I define as “construction” and “outsourcing.” I conclude by discussing the broader organizational implications of these findings.
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    Discretion as weakness: exploring the relationship between correctional officers’ attitudes toward discretion and attempted boundary violations
    (2024) Stevens, Leanne; Schultz, William; Patterson, Andrew C.
    Research paints discretion as a tool correctional officers (COs) use to navigate their work. Discretion helps COs gain compliance and resolve conflicts amicably, and officers sometimes use it to improve relationships with incarcerated people. However, research also suggest that COs’ reliance on discretionary power may produce harmful complications, undermining institutional regulations and creating conditions for serious rule violations. Little quantitative analysis exists on how CO discretion impacts prison operations, making the broader impact of discretion unclear. To address this gap, we use open-access data collected between 2017–2018 (Griffin & Hepburn, 2020). We then test whether a CO’s attitude toward discretion may correspond with attempts from incarcerated people to encourage boundary violations. Results show that COs with more liberal attitudes toward discretion correspond with higher odds of being approached by incarcerated people to violate boundaries. Black COs have lower odds of being approached for minor boundary violations, while women officers have higher odds of having incarcerated people try to initiate an inappropriate relationship. Findings show that liberal attitudes among COs toward discretion may encourage incarcerated people to violate the most consequential prison rules. We conclude by discussing the implications for future research.
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    The floating signifier of "safety": correctional officer perspectives on COVID-19 restrictuions, legitimacy and prison order
    (2022) Schultz, William; Ricciardelli, Rosemary
    The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect prisons internationally. Existing research focuses on infections data, meaning we do not fully understand how COVID-19 shapes front-line prison dynamics. We draw on qualitative interviews with 21 Canadian federal correctional officers, exploring how the pandemic impacted prison management. Officers suggested inconsistent messaging around COVID-19 protocols reduced institutional and officers’ self-legitimacy, fracturing trust relationships with incarcerated people. Furthermore, officers suggest that personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gowns and face shields took on multiple meanings. We use Lévi-Strauss’ floating signifier concept to analyze how individual definitions of “safety” informed day-to-day prison routines. We conclude by arguing that legitimacy deficits and contested definitions of “safety” will continue to create uncertainty, impacting prison operations going forward.
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    A good place to do time? Detailing the construction of symbolic social boundaries in correctional boot camps
    (2024) Schultz, William; Bucerius, Sandra M.; Haggerty, Kevin D.
    Drawing on qualitative interviews with 51 incarcerated adult men and nine correctional officers in a Western Canadian prison system, we ask why some incarcerated people find it appealing to be placed on correctional boot camp units and what such appeals tell us about broader conditions of incarceration. Participants on three boot camp units drew on narratives relating to (a) extrinsic benefits, (b) discipline and structure, (c) teamwork and positive relationships, and (d) an opportunity for self-improvement to construct symbolic boundaries between “normal” units and boot camps, as well as their former self and their transformed current self. By drawing symbolic boundaries between the past and present and between other units and their boot camp unit, our participants create narratives that allow them to partially mitigate some pains of imprisonment.
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    “Hesitation gets you killed:” perceived vulnerability as an axiomatic feature of correctional officer working personalities
    (2023) Schultz, William
    Research on correctional officers (COs) has expanded over the past two decades, giving us a broad picture into the mental health, culture, and discretionary practices of a traditionally overlooked branch of law enforcement. However, gaps in this portrait remain. Drawing on 131 semi-structured qualitative interviews with Canadian COs, I demonstrate how COs’ perceptions of vulnerability powerfully shape officer actions and working personalities. To explain this, I introduce the concept of the vulnerability axiom, a cultural heuristic that frames how officers perceive their position within prisons. COs describe themselves as vulnerable to threats posed by incarcerated people, managers, and other officers, and act in specific ways to mediate these threats. The vulnerability axiom shapes how COs perceive their position within the prison, impacting relationships with managers and incarcerated people and shaping officer control behaviors. I conclude by discussing how the vulnerability axiom may help to reframe future CO research.
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    “I have to be a man for my son”: the narrative uses of fatherhood in prison
    (2023) Schultz, William; Bucerius, Sandra M.; Haggerty, Kevin D.
    Research on incarcerated fathers tends to accentuate the harmful familial consequences of parental incarceration and discuss how having children might prompt incarcerated fathers to desist from crime. Less attention has focused on how narratives of fatherhood shape the day-to-day dynamics of incarceration. Drawing on 93 qualitative interviews with incarcerated fathers in Western Canada, we focus specifically on our participants’ parenting narratives. Such narratives are significant interventions in the world, allowing incarcerated fathers to frame their identities in particular ways while simultaneously shaping personal behaviour. Our research, 1. Identifies important fatherhood narratives provided by our participants, and 2. Details how such narratives operate in prison, allowing our participants to advance personal agendas that are themselves related to the dynamics of incarceration. In doing so, we provide insights into incarcerated fathers’ situations and advance criminological efforts to appreciate how different actors entangled in the criminal justice system conceive, manage, and narrate their situation.
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    Mixed reviews: perceptions of prison health care delivery in Western Canadian prisons
    (2024) Schultz, William
    Prison health care is often described as substandard and reduces the quality of life for those experiencing incarceration. However, examining incarcerated peoples’ perceptions of prison health care reveals specific nuances on the topic. I draw on 587 interviews with incarcerated people and 131 correctional officer interviews, collected as part of the University of Alberta Prisons Project, to detail how incarcerated people perceive prison health care. First, a substantial minority of participants describe prison health care as a positive part of their experience, specifically detailing its impact on substance use and chronic health problems. Second, participants describe gaps in prison health care, with a specific focus on medication provision and communication. Finally, participants describe prison health care as a form of capricious governance, which increases the pain of incarceration. Together, these three themes shed light on how prison health care shapes the experiences of incarcerated people. Post-print version.
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    “That shit doesn’t fly”: subcultural impediments to prison radicalization
    (2023) Bucerius, Sandra M.; Schultz, William; Haggerty, Kevin D.
    Many observers describe prison subcultures as inherently and irredeemably antisocial. Research directly ties prison subcultures to violence, gang membership, and poor reintegration. In extreme cases, research has also suggested that prison subcultures contribute to incarcerated people joining radical groups or embracing violent extremist beliefs. These claims, however, ignore key differences in the larger cultural and social context of prisons. We examine the relationship between prison subcultures and prison radicalization based on semistructured qualitative interviews with 148 incarcerated men and 131 correctional officers from four western Canadian prisons. We outline several imported features of the prison subculture that make incarcerated people resilient to radicalized and extremist messaging. These features include 1) national cultural imaginaries; 2) the racial profile of a prison, including racial sorting or a lack thereof; and 3) how radicalization allowed incarcerated men and correctional officers to act outside the otherwise agreed-to subcultural rules. Our research findings stress the importance of contemplating broader sociocultural influences when trying to understand the relationship between radicalization and prison dynamics and politics.