Description

Bearing the Neoconservative Burden? Frontline Work in Prisons

Pursuing a topic raised by Geoff Ward in Social Justice 31:1-2, and using illustrations from Canada’s first privately run adult prison, this article examines work in the burgeoning prison-industrial complex. It argues that (1) corrections officers are best seen as frontline workers, facing typical frontline pressures like work intensification and deskilling; and (2) corrections officers occupy an exposed part of an increasingly coercive regime, where supermax technology and privatization are making corrections work less autonomous and more dangerous.

corrections officers, guards, privatization, private prisons, neoconservatism

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 34, Nos. 3-4 (2007): 78-97