The Significance of Ethnicity in Staffing Corrections

Authors

Alfred J. Kutzik, University of Maryland

Abstract

Excerpt from the full-text article:

Until recently the total thrust of efforts to improve the staffing of corrections has been towards the recruitment and development of trained personnel. In the past decade it has begun to be recognized that factors other than training have to be taken into account. Largely as a result of California's groundbreaking Community Treatment Project the personality of staff is now considered by some to be as important as their training and in a few programs those with certain types of personality and training have been assigned to work, i.e., "matched", with juvenile offenders who have consonant types of personality and problems.' Although less insistently and influentially, there has also been recognition that the ethnicity of correctional personnel has a bearing on the effectiveness of treatment of offenders, particularly those from minority groups. However, little has been done in the seven years since the first and last discussion of this subject in the literature to implement its conclusion that "cultural differences among offenders" indicates the need for "recruitment of increased numbers (of correctional personnel) from minority groups." There has been some increase in recruiting Blacks, but this has taken place mainly as a fair employment measure because of the new political power of this group rather than out of concern for improving treatment, as evidenced by the fact that very few Chicano and Puerto Rican personnel work with the considerable numbers of offenders from these politically weaker groups in the United States' southwest and northeast. This discussion addresses itself to the failure to recognize the crucial importance for corrections of the ethnicity of its service personnel. It presents a theoretical rationale for and some program and policy implications of such recognition.

Recommended Citation

Kutzik, Alfred J. (1974) "The Significance of Ethnicity in Staffing Corrections," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 1: Iss. 4, Article 9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15453/0191-5096.1057
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol1/iss4/9