Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.9
H. Pelvin
This chapter reflectively engages with the challenge of confronting positionality in qualitative fieldwork with vulnerable participants. Drawing on a set of encounters during fieldwork in a provincial prison in Canada, it unpacks the problem of having personal ties to a research population in action. In this vein, the chapter considers the ethical and privacy implications of reflexivity in these complicated and delicate situations and settings. It demonstrates how confronting positionality in fieldwork can influence the research process, including data collection and dissemination, in ways that can be both conducive and discouraging to scholarly engagement. Additionally, it raises issues that may challenge dominant and taken for granted assumptions about the value of the reflexive practice that is encouraged in qualitative research more generally.
{"title":"“Tell mom I said hi”: Confronting Positionality in Fieldwork","authors":"H. Pelvin","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.9","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter reflectively engages with the challenge of confronting positionality in qualitative fieldwork with vulnerable participants. Drawing on a set of encounters during fieldwork in a provincial prison in Canada, it unpacks the problem of having personal ties to a research population in action. In this vein, the chapter considers the ethical and privacy implications of reflexivity in these complicated and delicate situations and settings. It demonstrates how confronting positionality in fieldwork can influence the research process, including data collection and dissemination, in ways that can be both conducive and discouraging to scholarly engagement. Additionally, it raises issues that may challenge dominant and taken for granted assumptions about the value of the reflexive practice that is encouraged in qualitative research more generally.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130213082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.1
L. Berardi
This chapter provides a broad overview of the history and use of ethnography as a tool for studying crime and deviance. It traces the development of ethnographic methods, including participant observation, from ancient times to the present, exploring how early-twentieth-century anthropologists and sociologists, First and Second Chicago School ethnographers, and scholars from a variety of intellectual traditions have shaped, problematized, and codified ethnography—leaving us with some of the most canonical studies of crime and deviance in the process. This chapter serves as an historical steppingstone for the remainder of the handbook, highlighting some of the most influential people, places, studies, and movements that have shaped how contemporary crime ethnographers understand and practice their craft.
{"title":"The History of (Crime) Ethnography","authors":"L. Berardi","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.1","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides a broad overview of the history and use of ethnography as a tool for studying crime and deviance. It traces the development of ethnographic methods, including participant observation, from ancient times to the present, exploring how early-twentieth-century anthropologists and sociologists, First and Second Chicago School ethnographers, and scholars from a variety of intellectual traditions have shaped, problematized, and codified ethnography—leaving us with some of the most canonical studies of crime and deviance in the process. This chapter serves as an historical steppingstone for the remainder of the handbook, highlighting some of the most influential people, places, studies, and movements that have shaped how contemporary crime ethnographers understand and practice their craft.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129477221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.29
Andrea M. Leverentz
This chapter discusses ethnographies of reentry, or the process of people returning from prison to the community. In the chapter, both ethnography and reentry are defined broadly. For example, qualitative interviewing, participation observation, and a combination thereof are included under an umbrella of “ethnography.” These studies share an inductive or abductive analysis, with iterative engagement between data and existing literature and theories, and therefore the possibility for theoretical development. While much of the focus is on the return of people to the community after a period of incarceration, key works that focus on adjacent concepts, such as desistance, or why and how people with a pattern and history of offending stop, are also included. The chapter begins with a discussion of major ethnographic works on reentry, organized by those that focus on the individuals experiencing reentry (including major subgroups, such as men or women, people of different race/ethnic groups, youth, or young adults) and those that focus on systems and organizations. Then, it discusses major methodological issues, including researcher positionality. It concludes with brief discussions of future directions, which build both on earlier findings and on new technologies, and policy suggestions that emerge from both findings and practices in ethnographic work.
{"title":"Ethnographies on Prisoner Reentry","authors":"Andrea M. Leverentz","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.29","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses ethnographies of reentry, or the process of people returning from prison to the community. In the chapter, both ethnography and reentry are defined broadly. For example, qualitative interviewing, participation observation, and a combination thereof are included under an umbrella of “ethnography.” These studies share an inductive or abductive analysis, with iterative engagement between data and existing literature and theories, and therefore the possibility for theoretical development. While much of the focus is on the return of people to the community after a period of incarceration, key works that focus on adjacent concepts, such as desistance, or why and how people with a pattern and history of offending stop, are also included. The chapter begins with a discussion of major ethnographic works on reentry, organized by those that focus on the individuals experiencing reentry (including major subgroups, such as men or women, people of different race/ethnic groups, youth, or young adults) and those that focus on systems and organizations. Then, it discusses major methodological issues, including researcher positionality. It concludes with brief discussions of future directions, which build both on earlier findings and on new technologies, and policy suggestions that emerge from both findings and practices in ethnographic work.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114316273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.19
T. Turner, Tony Colombo
The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how ethnographic research can generate unique insights into the situated meaning of illicit drug use within bounded play spaces of pleasure and excess. The case study draws on three summers of participant observation with British tourists on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a holiday resort culturally defined by narratives of hedonism, drugs and dance music. The chapter discusses three principal aspects of the ethnographic research. First, a step-by-step outline of the methodological framework is provided. Second, key findings on the pleasures of drug use are discussed, demonstrating how ethnography can generate unique insights into this area of study. Third, future directions for ethnographic research in relation to drug users are proposed.
{"title":"Drug Users: A Case Study","authors":"T. Turner, Tony Colombo","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.19","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how ethnographic research can generate unique insights into the situated meaning of illicit drug use within bounded play spaces of pleasure and excess. The case study draws on three summers of participant observation with British tourists on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a holiday resort culturally defined by narratives of hedonism, drugs and dance music. The chapter discusses three principal aspects of the ethnographic research. First, a step-by-step outline of the methodological framework is provided. Second, key findings on the pleasures of drug use are discussed, demonstrating how ethnography can generate unique insights into this area of study. Third, future directions for ethnographic research in relation to drug users are proposed.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125472728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.16
A. Fraser
This chapter makes the case for criminological ethnography as a form of negotiated boundary work between separate sociocultural domains. Drawing on the conceptualization of “field” articulated by Pierre Bourdieu, as a semiautonomous site of contest, the chapter conceives of fieldwork as a distinct form of emotional labor; in short, as fieldwork. In making this argument, the chapter presents findings from a four-year ethnographic study of street gangs in Glasgow, Scotland, which involved navigating multiple, overlapping fields. The first section introduces the study, covering the experience of entering the “street field” of Langview. The second and third sections outline two empirical contributions flowing from the study, covering cultural reproduction in the “street” field and bureaucratic misrecognition in the “police” field. The fourth is a reflexive account of the disjuncture between the “street” and “academic” field, and the reflections this prompted. In conclusion, the chapter suggests a number of implications and conclusions for ethnography, gang studies, and public policy.
{"title":"Entering the Street Field: A Case Study on Gangs","authors":"A. Fraser","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.16","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter makes the case for criminological ethnography as a form of negotiated boundary work between separate sociocultural domains. Drawing on the conceptualization of “field” articulated by Pierre Bourdieu, as a semiautonomous site of contest, the chapter conceives of fieldwork as a distinct form of emotional labor; in short, as fieldwork. In making this argument, the chapter presents findings from a four-year ethnographic study of street gangs in Glasgow, Scotland, which involved navigating multiple, overlapping fields. The first section introduces the study, covering the experience of entering the “street field” of Langview. The second and third sections outline two empirical contributions flowing from the study, covering cultural reproduction in the “street” field and bureaucratic misrecognition in the “police” field. The fourth is a reflexive account of the disjuncture between the “street” and “academic” field, and the reflections this prompted. In conclusion, the chapter suggests a number of implications and conclusions for ethnography, gang studies, and public policy.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128841270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.21
R. Curtis, P. Begum
This chapter examines how ethnographers and qualitative researchers have described drug dealers. Written as an interview, the chapter touches on many of the themes and tropes that have characterized the literature about drug dealers, including their propensity to violence, their hedonism, the apparent increase in the number of women in the business, their problematic family lives, and their lack of attachment to the workforce. The chapter explains how research funding that prioritized drug dealers at the bottom of the economic hierarchy and overlooked those at the top has sometimes led to peculiar characterizations of drug dealers and particular kinds of explanatory frameworks that are often rooted in thin subcultural soil. Ethnography about drug dealers in the service of government-funded research has transformed the field from ones dominated by individuals who conducted community studies to one where ethnographers work as part of a team to produce narrow findings that supplement, contextualize, and help explain survey data. Going forward, the ethnography of drug dealers will benefit from greater awareness of the importance of reflexivity in the field and from partnerships that enrich our understanding and act as a corrective to our individual myopic perspectives.
{"title":"Ethnographies of Drug Dealers","authors":"R. Curtis, P. Begum","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.21","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines how ethnographers and qualitative researchers have described drug dealers. Written as an interview, the chapter touches on many of the themes and tropes that have characterized the literature about drug dealers, including their propensity to violence, their hedonism, the apparent increase in the number of women in the business, their problematic family lives, and their lack of attachment to the workforce. The chapter explains how research funding that prioritized drug dealers at the bottom of the economic hierarchy and overlooked those at the top has sometimes led to peculiar characterizations of drug dealers and particular kinds of explanatory frameworks that are often rooted in thin subcultural soil. Ethnography about drug dealers in the service of government-funded research has transformed the field from ones dominated by individuals who conducted community studies to one where ethnographers work as part of a team to produce narrow findings that supplement, contextualize, and help explain survey data. Going forward, the ethnography of drug dealers will benefit from greater awareness of the importance of reflexivity in the field and from partnerships that enrich our understanding and act as a corrective to our individual myopic perspectives.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"124 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128168751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.12
Jennifer Fleetwood, Sveinung Sandberg
This chapter outlines how criminological researchers can attend to narrative as part of their ethnographic practice. Attention to the narrativity of speech, conversations, and texts pertaining to both individuals and groups has the potential to enrich ethnographic research on crime, criminal justice, and victims/survivors. It accentuates that stories told in field, between research participants—and to the researcher—are paramount for most ethnographic fieldwork. Ethnographers can draw much from contemporary developments in narrative criminology. We outline two insights in particular: talk is a kind of social action that does things and, second, stories motivate and guide behaviour. We review research in narrative criminology to demonstrate the importance of stories for understanding crime and justice: they delineate insiders and outsiders, convey identity, supply know-how, and display criminal capital. Vengeance and violence are also a way to tell or enact stories. This chapter also explores questions of methodology and discusses some practical issues such as how to invite storytelling and how to use recording devices in the field. We conclude with some thoughts about future directions for narrative criminology and ethnography.
{"title":"Narrative Criminology and Ethnography","authors":"Jennifer Fleetwood, Sveinung Sandberg","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.12","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter outlines how criminological researchers can attend to narrative as part of their ethnographic practice. Attention to the narrativity of speech, conversations, and texts pertaining to both individuals and groups has the potential to enrich ethnographic research on crime, criminal justice, and victims/survivors. It accentuates that stories told in field, between research participants—and to the researcher—are paramount for most ethnographic fieldwork. Ethnographers can draw much from contemporary developments in narrative criminology. We outline two insights in particular: talk is a kind of social action that does things and, second, stories motivate and guide behaviour. We review research in narrative criminology to demonstrate the importance of stories for understanding crime and justice: they delineate insiders and outsiders, convey identity, supply know-how, and display criminal capital. Vengeance and violence are also a way to tell or enact stories. This chapter also explores questions of methodology and discusses some practical issues such as how to invite storytelling and how to use recording devices in the field. We conclude with some thoughts about future directions for narrative criminology and ethnography.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123390121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.4
D. Hobbs
This chapter addresses ethnographies of criminal culture. It refers in particular to the fluctuating political economic context within which this academic tradition has functioned and its historical trajectory. It addresses criminal cultures of the industrial era, the ethnographic studies that chart the criminal cultures that emerged from post-industrial society, and the constraints imposed upon contemporary ethnographers by the neoliberal university. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the author’s long-term engagement in the field, and queries the relevance of the concept of criminal culture by referring to an ongoing case study that is informed by the political economy of post-industrial society rather than by the dead hand of criminological orthodoxy.
{"title":"Ethnography and Criminal Cultures: Urban Change and the Context of Ethnographic Fieldwork","authors":"D. Hobbs","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.4","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter addresses ethnographies of criminal culture. It refers in particular to the fluctuating political economic context within which this academic tradition has functioned and its historical trajectory. It addresses criminal cultures of the industrial era, the ethnographic studies that chart the criminal cultures that emerged from post-industrial society, and the constraints imposed upon contemporary ethnographers by the neoliberal university. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the author’s long-term engagement in the field, and queries the relevance of the concept of criminal culture by referring to an ongoing case study that is informed by the political economy of post-industrial society rather than by the dead hand of criminological orthodoxy.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123966234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.5
Keith Guzik, G. Marx
This chapter encourages social scientists, policy planners, and public administrators to reflect critically on the methods used to define crime problems and policy responses to them. It argues for the increased use of ethnographic methods in formulating policy by seeking points of connection with quantitative approaches. Quantitative methods are better suited for crime policy given their methodological rigor, instrumental and programmatic orientation, and relatively low costs per datum unit. However, qualitative methods have a complementary role to play, being better attuned to the subjective experiences of crime and crime control and better able to illustrate factors correlated with these phenomena. Ethnographic methods permit reflexivity regarding the broader settings and specific contexts of crime and criminological research. Two cases of ethnographic techniques within criminal justice practice are shared to demonstrate their viability—one from the US Department of Justice and another from Court Watch Poland. The chapter finishes with lessons for researchers and policy planners, including the importance of engaging in collaborative research, triangulating methods, embracing uncomfortable findings, and reconsidering research ethics.
{"title":"Politics, Policy, and Crime Ethnography","authors":"Keith Guzik, G. Marx","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.5","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter encourages social scientists, policy planners, and public administrators to reflect critically on the methods used to define crime problems and policy responses to them. It argues for the increased use of ethnographic methods in formulating policy by seeking points of connection with quantitative approaches. Quantitative methods are better suited for crime policy given their methodological rigor, instrumental and programmatic orientation, and relatively low costs per datum unit. However, qualitative methods have a complementary role to play, being better attuned to the subjective experiences of crime and crime control and better able to illustrate factors correlated with these phenomena. Ethnographic methods permit reflexivity regarding the broader settings and specific contexts of crime and criminological research. Two cases of ethnographic techniques within criminal justice practice are shared to demonstrate their viability—one from the US Department of Justice and another from Court Watch Poland. The chapter finishes with lessons for researchers and policy planners, including the importance of engaging in collaborative research, triangulating methods, embracing uncomfortable findings, and reconsidering research ethics.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122277923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.28
W. J. Schultz
Correctional officers occupy key positions of power and influence in prisons, yet experience massive stress and perceive themselves as vulnerable. Existing research outlines the significant mental health challenges officers face, but there is limited information on exactly how mental health concerns influence officer behavior on a day-to-day basis. I draw on ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews with 131 Canadian provincial correctional officers, to demonstrate that stress, perceptions of vulnerability, and tension between management and staff strongly influence officer behavior. My participants outline common officer narratives relating to mental health, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and even suicide. In addition, a portion of officers describe using substances to manage stress. I detail how these narratives influence officer behavior toward prisoners, managers, other officers, and people outside prison. I conclude by examining existing mental health programming for officers and assess what steps correctional administrators can take to address common concerns.
{"title":"“You Have No Idea What We Do”: Correctional Officers, Mental Health, and Prison Ethnography","authors":"W. J. Schultz","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904500.013.28","url":null,"abstract":"Correctional officers occupy key positions of power and influence in prisons, yet experience massive stress and perceive themselves as vulnerable. Existing research outlines the significant mental health challenges officers face, but there is limited information on exactly how mental health concerns influence officer behavior on a day-to-day basis. I draw on ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews with 131 Canadian provincial correctional officers, to demonstrate that stress, perceptions of vulnerability, and tension between management and staff strongly influence officer behavior. My participants outline common officer narratives relating to mental health, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and even suicide. In addition, a portion of officers describe using substances to manage stress. I detail how these narratives influence officer behavior toward prisoners, managers, other officers, and people outside prison. I conclude by examining existing mental health programming for officers and assess what steps correctional administrators can take to address common concerns.","PeriodicalId":337631,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114240261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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