Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Male, Female or Correctional Officer?
by Sgt. Barry Evert
Since the introduction of female Correctional Officers in the 60’s and 70’s, many have tried to solve the inevitable chauvinism and discrimination against them with a toolbox full of slogans and rules. None of these can be truly effective if the discrimination still exists in the heart of the male Officers.
Before I go any farther, allow me to tell on myself. I have been as guilty of gender discrimination as the next Officer. When I was a young Officer working a maximum-security facility, I was assigned my first female partner. She was a young Officer also, and new to the department. She was 5’3” and maybe 130 pounds soaking wet. I groaned to myself when I saw her, knowing our unit was volatile, and physical confrontations were a daily occurrence. The mistake I made was that I saw her as a female Officer, not a Correctional Officer. Less than two hours into the shift I received a call from my Sergeant instructing me to search a particularly hostile inmate for contraband. I had a pretty good idea that it was going to lead to a physical confrontation, and picked up the phone to arrange for extra staff. As I was doing this, the inmate in question came to our office. I readied myself for battle, and told the inmate to face the wall. The inmate immediately became loud and boisterous. Sure of his intentions now, I took the sunglasses off my head and handed them to my partner, telling her to hold onto them. The next couple of minutes are a blur now, but I do remember my partner being the one to cuff the inmate up. She did not say much to me at the time, but I had a new respect for her ability and willingness to be there when needed. Years later she brought the incident up to me when we were discussing training new staff. She told me she had never been so mad at anyone in her career as she was with me that day. I had treated her as a lesser Officer, solely based on her gender and appearance. She went on to tell me that I was not the only one to do this to her, but I was the first. My eyes were opened.
There are three ways to treat an Officer, and only one of them is correct. You can treat an Officer as a Male Officer, a Female Officer or as a Correctional Officer. If you treat a partner or a subordinate differently based solely on their gender you are wrong. There are plenty of Officers who happen to be female that I would rather have on my side during a battle than their male counterparts. If you treat all staff like Correctional Officers, using their strengths and understanding their weaknesses, you are doing things the right way. This does allow for what some may say is discrimination.
If a particular Officer is not very good at tactics or lacks the physical ability to perform certain tasks, and you decide not to use them as part of a special team, you must make sure that you are basing this on the knowledge of that particular person as an Officer, not based on their gender. There will be times when a particular Officer may show less than useful skills in an area that makes it stereotypical, but this is unavoidable. Just don’t be afraid to explain to the Officer that you have noticed that this particular area is not their strength, so they were not selected for the assignment, team, etc. There is no tactical sense, nor is it a good safety practice, to pick your teams with the sole intent of being “politically correct.” I can’t think of very many Officers who want to win an assignment or place on a team based on their gender. This is not fair to the Officer or others on the team. Every Officer has strengths and weaknesses, and by understanding what those are, the Officer can work to improve or compensate for their weaknesses.
There is one exception to all of this, and this is what earns me a lot of grief when I speak on it. The exception to my “Correctional Officer” rule is the worst case scenario of a hostage situation. When the time comes that hostages are taken inside of a male prison, and it turns into a long-term standoff, my number one priority besides ending the conflict, will be to get the female hostages out as soon as possible. Some of you may be spitting fire now, but understand a couple of facts first. In the last 8 years, there have been numerous hostage standoffs. I will not name anyone specifically to protect the Officers who were victimized. During these standoffs, almost every time there was a female staff member being held hostage, she was brutalized, raped, and usually killed to conceal the crime. It is a matter of fact that male inmates, especially sentenced for long periods of time, will often victimize female hostages. During these situations they have complete control of the hostages, and feel they have nothing to lose. This is a deadly mix of adrenaline and control that will often result in the brutal treatment of female hostages. Sorry guys, but if hostages are released, my priority is to take away the temptation as soon as possible. I have come to peace, as have many others, that I would rather stay and take my chances, if it will result in the release of a female hostage. There are worse things than dying.
Having shown my somewhat chauvinistic side now, allow me to drive my core point home here. There are neither male Officers, nor female Officers. There are Correctional Officers, period. Each Correctional Officer has their own abilities, which we should amplify and recognize. Each Correctional Officer also has areas that need improvement, and we should help them with those. We can never assume that a person’s abilities or areas that require improvement are based solely on their gender. There is a need for this equality, but also a need for tactical sense as I have described above.
I know that I work with some of the best Correctional Officers in the world. I trust them with my life everyday, and I couldn’t care less if they are male or female. All I know is that they are my partners, and we would all lay down our lives for each other.
Before I go any farther, allow me to tell on myself. I have been as guilty of gender discrimination as the next Officer. When I was a young Officer working a maximum-security facility, I was assigned my first female partner. She was a young Officer also, and new to the department. She was 5’3” and maybe 130 pounds soaking wet. I groaned to myself when I saw her, knowing our unit was volatile, and physical confrontations were a daily occurrence. The mistake I made was that I saw her as a female Officer, not a Correctional Officer. Less than two hours into the shift I received a call from my Sergeant instructing me to search a particularly hostile inmate for contraband. I had a pretty good idea that it was going to lead to a physical confrontation, and picked up the phone to arrange for extra staff. As I was doing this, the inmate in question came to our office. I readied myself for battle, and told the inmate to face the wall. The inmate immediately became loud and boisterous. Sure of his intentions now, I took the sunglasses off my head and handed them to my partner, telling her to hold onto them. The next couple of minutes are a blur now, but I do remember my partner being the one to cuff the inmate up. She did not say much to me at the time, but I had a new respect for her ability and willingness to be there when needed. Years later she brought the incident up to me when we were discussing training new staff. She told me she had never been so mad at anyone in her career as she was with me that day. I had treated her as a lesser Officer, solely based on her gender and appearance. She went on to tell me that I was not the only one to do this to her, but I was the first. My eyes were opened.
There are three ways to treat an Officer, and only one of them is correct. You can treat an Officer as a Male Officer, a Female Officer or as a Correctional Officer. If you treat a partner or a subordinate differently based solely on their gender you are wrong. There are plenty of Officers who happen to be female that I would rather have on my side during a battle than their male counterparts. If you treat all staff like Correctional Officers, using their strengths and understanding their weaknesses, you are doing things the right way. This does allow for what some may say is discrimination.
If a particular Officer is not very good at tactics or lacks the physical ability to perform certain tasks, and you decide not to use them as part of a special team, you must make sure that you are basing this on the knowledge of that particular person as an Officer, not based on their gender. There will be times when a particular Officer may show less than useful skills in an area that makes it stereotypical, but this is unavoidable. Just don’t be afraid to explain to the Officer that you have noticed that this particular area is not their strength, so they were not selected for the assignment, team, etc. There is no tactical sense, nor is it a good safety practice, to pick your teams with the sole intent of being “politically correct.” I can’t think of very many Officers who want to win an assignment or place on a team based on their gender. This is not fair to the Officer or others on the team. Every Officer has strengths and weaknesses, and by understanding what those are, the Officer can work to improve or compensate for their weaknesses.
There is one exception to all of this, and this is what earns me a lot of grief when I speak on it. The exception to my “Correctional Officer” rule is the worst case scenario of a hostage situation. When the time comes that hostages are taken inside of a male prison, and it turns into a long-term standoff, my number one priority besides ending the conflict, will be to get the female hostages out as soon as possible. Some of you may be spitting fire now, but understand a couple of facts first. In the last 8 years, there have been numerous hostage standoffs. I will not name anyone specifically to protect the Officers who were victimized. During these standoffs, almost every time there was a female staff member being held hostage, she was brutalized, raped, and usually killed to conceal the crime. It is a matter of fact that male inmates, especially sentenced for long periods of time, will often victimize female hostages. During these situations they have complete control of the hostages, and feel they have nothing to lose. This is a deadly mix of adrenaline and control that will often result in the brutal treatment of female hostages. Sorry guys, but if hostages are released, my priority is to take away the temptation as soon as possible. I have come to peace, as have many others, that I would rather stay and take my chances, if it will result in the release of a female hostage. There are worse things than dying.
Having shown my somewhat chauvinistic side now, allow me to drive my core point home here. There are neither male Officers, nor female Officers. There are Correctional Officers, period. Each Correctional Officer has their own abilities, which we should amplify and recognize. Each Correctional Officer also has areas that need improvement, and we should help them with those. We can never assume that a person’s abilities or areas that require improvement are based solely on their gender. There is a need for this equality, but also a need for tactical sense as I have described above.
I know that I work with some of the best Correctional Officers in the world. I trust them with my life everyday, and I couldn’t care less if they are male or female. All I know is that they are my partners, and we would all lay down our lives for each other.
