response # 20

The hostage situation in Arizona has many key points that are pointed out in Brittons study. The first and major point is the endangerment that Correctional officers face when they are employed. Every officer knowingly takes the risk of death when they are employed as CO’s. Though it is very rare that a officer life is taken in the line of duty, it happens and it must be something that an officer must keep in his/or hers mind every time they put on the badge. It is known that young officers, right out of training are the most stern and show no emotion. This is because they are fresh out of training where they have been drilled to trust no one and to never let their guard down. That is clearly something that Lois still had. Where as her partner let his guard down for one second and chaos struck. There is no question about the danger that is involved in becoming a CO or a police officer. This danger is something that they must accept and use to keep them safe. Dora is known for saving her Lois life because of her patience. This shows some great power with the female body in administration. Dora was more calm and relaxed than maybe a male would have been. This is great evidence that it does not matter what your gender is but rather how you perform and react to certain situations. Prisons are total institutions due to the fact that when an occurrence like the one that happened in Arizona happens, it affects the whole prison. Every other guard and member of the prison was waiting to storm the tower or get that call to make the kill shot. This shows that the institution is a whole object and not just sections. The gender segregating that exists inside the prison showed in the hostage situation. Lois had no idea how to handle the situation because she was a female and males were holding her. She had no training on how to keep herself safe and not to provoke bad situation on her self. She had to teach her self these applications. This is a clear demonstration on how men benefit from women but women do not benefit from men. Britton explains this in his study. He states that men will benefit from the presence of women in the job but women do get any such advantage.
I don’t know if Brittons recommendation would have necessarily prohibited the hostage situation. I believe that it was more a management problem of the facility more than anything. The director did not put any time or resources in to keeping the prison running under safe and secure measures. The staff was determined to be poorly trained and not up to par of standards that should have been set forth. This was the main cause of the problem. There were so many loopholes in the prison itself it allowed for the situation to unravel. The inmates were obviously able to detect that lack of security that existed and saw it as an opportunity to control the tower. With the implementation of Dora’s new training program where the employees of the prison are now all up to par with prison standards, the prison is less vulnerable for another situation for it to happen. The situation was a possibility that never should happened under the right management of the prison. It is a threat that every prison has to take into consideration. Prisons directors always have to think about the what if. What if the guard tower was to be taken over by inmates? How would the facility respond to this situation? What would not be done to make sure that no one including inmates nor officer’s life was taken due to the breach of security. This also shows the importance of making sure officers do not become attached to inmates. The hostage situation occurred because the inmate was able to sue do an officer and taking the uniform along with access to secure checkpoints. This shows that when there is a lack of upper qualified management there are problems that can arise do to it. It is important to keep the facilities running safely.