Let me qualify that. They can be good jobs in terms of pay, benefits and job security, especially for people with relatively little formal education. That is the main reason many people stay with them. But from the standpoint of the actual daily experience, working in a prison is bad in many of the same ways that being a prisoner is.
Some months into my time in minimum security, I was taken to a medical appointment outside the prison. Unlike prisoners in maximum or medium, I did not, thankfully, have to wear handcuffs or shackles when seeing a doctor in the community; I just got into a car with a correctional officer (guard) who happened to be a woman who was a visible minority.
Even in minimum security, the prisoner code is that you talk with guards as little as possible. Being considered a snitch can still lead to serious problems for any prisoner. However, when there are just two of you in a car the situation is different; there is nobody to observe. So we chatted, and I asked her about her experience in the system.
She said she had been a corrections officer for quite a few years. Her first couple of years were in a maximum-security institution and were miserable. “I cried every day when I came home,” she told me.
“Well,” I said, “that prison has some pretty dangerous people in it.”
She gave me a look. “Not the prisoners,” she said with vehemence. “I’ve never had a problem with a prisoner. It was the other staff who made my time there miserable.” That comment really got my attention.
Another staff member at the institution had shifted from being a guard to a different role. He told me that other guards did not like that and would harass him in various ways — for example pretending for several minutes not to see him standing in the rain before they unlocked a door for him.
Prisons are known to be places that often have toxic cultures. Just read the reports of the Correctional Investigator on Edmonton Institution in his 2021-22 report to get a glimpse of how bad this can be. It’s no accident that there are so many grievances in both federal and provincial public services from jail and prison staff, just as the Correctional Investigator gets hundreds of complaints every year from those prisoners who are willing to risk doing so.
Guards have the worst jobs in the system because almost everything they do is unpleasant or worse. They are keeping people locked up, keeping them away from the things that matter and enforcing rules that often make no sense. They are spending most of their time with people who have done bad things and people with addictions, mental health problems or horrible life situations of other kinds. They also have an unwritten code of staying distant from prisoners. It’s not uplifting work.
Much of the time guards do nothing at all. I could not count the number of times I saw guards on their phones or dozing or just staring into space. On the other hand, especially in higher security, there is always the potential for very ugly and violent things to happen — fights, killings, suicides, overdoses. Every prison has staff who have experienced traumatic events. That combination of lots of boredom with occasional horror is a very bad way to live. Guards also have a huge amount of authority over prisoners; the temptation to use that authority is high.
The jobs are somewhat better but still not good for people with professional roles in the prison, though more than 70 per cent of all prison staff are guards. I knew a number of teachers in the prison who were required to do things that made no sense educationally or prevented from doing what they knew would be better, such as bringing in learning materials of their own.
The psychologist who ran a course that I was required to do had to follow a script almost word for word and had to video some of her sessions to show that she was following the script. How insulting and demeaning for any professional! A counsellor I spoke with told me as soon as we met that I had to be aware that anything I said in our sessions could be reported to prison officials. There was no confidentiality, which is hardly conducive to building a good relationship with a counsellor.
On another occasion I was in the A&D (admitting and demitting) area of the prison talking to one of the guards there, for reasons I don’t remember. I mentioned, or they asked, how much longer my sentence was and when I told them, their response was, “I’m out in five years.” When I asked what they meant, they said, “We’re serving time here too, counting the days until it’s over. The only difference is we get paid and get to go home at night.”
“Yeah,” I wanted to say, but did not, “those are pretty big differences. I don’t see any of you offering to trade places with us.” But the point being made, that their jobs were highly unsatisfying, was a fair one. Nor was this the only occasion on which I heard a guard compare their status to that of prisoners — going through something they would rather not until they could stop doing it by retiring. It’s not at all the same as being a prisoner, but it’s not good, either.
It is a sad situation that Canadians are spending billions of dollars every year to support institutions in which the vast majority of people, both those who are forced to be there but also those who have chosen to work there, fervently wish they could be somewhere else!
David Dorson is the pen name of someone who went through arrest, case disposition, imprisonment and parole in Ontario a few years ago. Law360 Canada has granted him anonymity because he offers a unique perspective on a subject that matters deeply to many readers, and revealing the author’s identity would make re-establishment in the community after serving his sentence much more difficult than it already is.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
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