Increased clarity or continued ambiguity? Correctional officers’ experiences of the evolving Canadian youth justice legislation

Prisons are increasingly recognized as emotional places, especially for frontline staff. Though sociological accounts of emotional labour in prisons acknowledges the potential for negative outcomes (e.g. burnout), little scholarly attention has investigated the potential for positive outcomes, particularly opportunities for staff to earn moral wages. This article explores the emotional labour undertaken by correctional officers (COs) working with incarcerated youth in Canadian provincial prisons. Utilizing interviews with 40 COs, we unpack the patterned interactions characteristic of frontline work that call for emotional labour by prison staff, and its outcomes. Our results show that staff are aware of the emotional labour expected of them on the frontline, where opportunities to earn moral wages are contextualized by structural limitations inherent to the carceral environment.

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Working with Incarcerated Youth: Emotional Labour and Moral Wages

Perry

Ricciardelli

2021

The British Journal of Criminology

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Canadian Youth Correctional Officers’ Views on Their Work and Relationships With Youth in Their Care

Bickle,

Cesaroni

2024

Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol

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This study explored the personal perspectives of youth correctional officers within secure and open custody facilities in Ontario. A multi-methods design allowed for quantitative data collection to assess demographics and scores on a relationship scale and qualitative open-ended survey responses to explore areas of interest regarding officer work. Despite a small sample size ( N = 26), results indicated trends in officers’ views of their work and relationships with youth. Youth officers report various job duties ranging from supervision/security to cleaning and preparing meals. Results indicate differences in endorsement for relationship development with youth for those who see treatment as part of their role in rehabilitation and those who do not. This exploratory study provides a starting point for understanding the unique experiences and duties of youth correctional officers in Ontario, Canada, and their views on relationship development with youth. Future research will include in-person interviews, facilitating more rich data collection.

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Agnostic Interactionism and Sensitizing Concepts in the 21st Century: Developing Shaffirian Theory-Work in Ethnographic Research

Kelly

Adorjan

2020

QSR

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In this paper, we reflect upon our experiences taking a graduate qualitative methodology course with Dr. William (Billy) Shaffir. We highlight Billy’s approach to ethnographic research and his declaration to “just do it.” Rather than just absorbing theoretical knowledge from the literature, Billy taught us to be wary of the dangers of a prior theorization and how it can distort rather than shed light on empirical investigations. Despite his belief that sociological theory is far too often abstract and removed from real-world contexts, he nevertheless provided us with a latent theoretical commitment to concept formation, modification, and testing in the field that guides our research to this day. We explore Shaffir’s agnostic and at times ironic approach to theory and demonstrate how his specific type of theory-work, derived from Everett Hughes’ and Howard Becker’s interactionist perspective on “people doing things together,” influenced how many of his students study occupations and organizations via sensitizing concepts. Billy managed to get us to think differently about how we theorize in the field and how to cultivate a playful and healthy skeptical attitude towards its application. This type of agnostic-interactionism does not dismiss theory outright, but is always vigilant and mindful of how easy it is for practitioners of theory to slip into obfuscation and reification. We conclude with a Shaffir inspired theory-work that argues for the continuing significance of an agnostic stance towards ethnographic and qualitative inquiry; one that continues to sensitize the researcher to generic social processes through which agency-structure is mediated and accomplished.

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Increased clarity or continued ambiguity? Correctional officers’ experiences of the evolving Canadian youth justice legislation

Cited by 3 publications

References 21 publications

Working with Incarcerated Youth: Emotional Labour and Moral Wages

Working with Incarcerated Youth: Emotional Labour and Moral Wages

Canadian Youth Correctional Officers’ Views on Their Work and Relationships With Youth in Their Care

Agnostic Interactionism and Sensitizing Concepts in the 21st Century: Developing Shaffirian Theory-Work in Ethnographic Research

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