Job Profile of Correctional Officers

The job profile of correctional officers includes security and inmate accountability. They are responsible for preventing disturbances, physical attacks, and escapes by the prisoners or inmates. The job profile of correctional officers can make them both sympathetic as well as hateful towards victims. They may be sympathetic because they deal with perpetrators who have been victimized.

In this context, do you think it is essential to educate correctional officers on the field of victimology? The study of why certain people are victims of crime is known as victimology. It also includes the study of how lifestyle makes certain people more susceptible to be victims. Author Susan Sontag wrote the following quotation on victims: “Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt”

• Is the quotation in the context of the study of victimology, acceptable? Why? Have you witnessed any situations in your life that would support or rebut this quotation? Provide two such instances from your personal life to substantiate your agreement or disagreement.
• Can officers working with the same criminal populations have differing views on victims? Can victimologists help correctional officers or do victimologists and correctional officers form an unnatural team? Why? Support your rationale with research-based examples or real-life experiences.