Blog #13: Prison Guards

When I think of a prison guard or correctional officer I think of a big, burly man with tattoos and scars and big bulging muscles. A lot of movies today portray the same images. The prison guards or officers are the most masculine of men who get rough and tough with the inmates they are guarding. A lot of the movies also portray these officers and guards abusing their power, whether it is for personal gain or just because they can. In these same movies, if you see a woman at all in the prison or detention center she is mostly likely to be sitting behind a desk doing clerical or administrative work. I have seen different depictions of women working in these types of jobs in the last few years. I used to see women who were correctional officers or guards as being depicted as “butch, short-haired, gun toting, man wanna-be’s and are usually ugly.” The women could not have any feminine characteristics and they almost always had a chip on their shoulders. Recently, I have seen a change in how women are shown in these positions. Now on tv there are shows that are all about women police officers and their lives. I believe one of them is “The Women of Broward County” or something of that nature and it is all about women police officers. It shows them as regular women who can be both masculine and feminine, they can be authoritative and enforcers, and they are very pretty women. These women are responsible for women inmates and detainees, but they are also capable of taking down big men. I have not noticed any differences in the way males are portrayed in male prisons or the way they are portrayed in female prisons. Actually, instead of abusing the inmates for personal gain in a male facility male officers or guards would sexually harass and force the women inmates for sexual favors in a female facility.