Unit C - Blog 18

Because prisons try to be gender neutral in their policies and generally men are the heads of most prisons, the rules become male dominated. The main reason is that they focus on the violent aspect of prisons which is mostly male dominated. Because of this officers are trained to be physically ready for these kind of outcomes and are not trained for the emotional aspect that many non-violent prisoners will show. The correctional training programs are also very hands on when they are dealing with working with the prisoners. For the most part they will allow trainees to see the violent outbreaks to gain experience. This reinforces the idea that prisons are extremely violent.
Men and women prisons are different because men and women prisoners have different ways of reacting to situations. Many officers report that female inmates will react to situations with emotional outbursts while men will react violently. They also say that women are more likely to do this over "petty" instances where as men are arguing over "real" matters. This is a problem because officers start to treat women and men prisoners differently take some matters in men's prisons more seriously then in women's prisons.
As long as prisons trivialize these instances then men and women prisoners will be treated differently. The hyper masculinity shown in many male officers may egg on male prisoners to exert their power too. This is especially prevalent for female officers who have to watch men masturbate. Many women claim it is because the men want to gain some control over them because they are not used to having women tell them what to do. Many women will combat this by embarrassing the inmate and therefore preventing future problems. Male officers have to be more careful about women making claims against them for being sexual. In female prisons they do this by pairing a male and female officer together. In male prisons, women do not perform any searches or showers for the male prisoners for fear of arousing the men or harming the female officer.