Response # 18

Britton discusses how norms become masculine to establish a gender-neutral policy and practice. This is reinforced in the on-the-job-training. When officers go through their intense training for becoming an officer, they are only taught how to deal with masculine behaviors. They are taught how to be authoritative and to not show emotion. They practice techniques on other men and majority of the time the instructors are also men. This poses a problem with in all women facilities. In all women facilities, women due fight but, many times officers have to deal with emotional fights. There are women who fight with themselves. They become very violent and emotional. Officers are not trained how to deal with emotional violence. Therefore, many times officers use the techniques taught to them in the training to restrain the inmates. There is no teaching of calming the inmate down and determining what the problem is without using some sort of force. Men and women prisons are very different from each other. Women prisons have more women who work in them then do men. Men in male prisons are often times kept within their cells for longer periods of time and are not allowed the same freedoms that women have. The prisons also vary in social structures. The women in the prisons have strong bonds between each other whereas that is not always the case for men. However, both male and female prisons have separation between inmates. Many time gangs form within the prisons for men and women also have special bonds or gangs that exist in their facilities as well. The gender-neutral training and the officers receive have a large part in why prisons are ran the way they are. The prisons are all trained to be the same and the impression that I get, is that it does not matter what gender you are when training, it is all taught to the way, but reflects a more historical masculine characteristics.