Is gender a factor in perceived prisonofficer competence? Male prisoners’perceptions in an English dispersalprison

ELIZABETH BOYD1 AND TIM GRANT2, 1HMP Wandsworth, UK;2Leicester University, UK

ABSTRACTBackground The introduction of women officers into HM Prison Service raisedquestions regarding women’s ability to perform what had traditionally been a male role.Existing research is inconclusive as to whether female prison officers are as competent asmale prison officers, and whether there are gender differences in job performance. Thisstudy examined prisoners’ perceptions of male and female prison officers’ performance.Hypotheses The hypotheses were that overall competence and professionalism ratingswould not differ for men and women officers, but that there would be differences inhow men and women were perceived to perform their roles. Women were expected tobe rated as more communicative, more empathic and less disciplining.Method The Prison Officer Competency Rating Scale (PORS) was designed for thisstudy. Ratings on the PORS for male and female officers were given by 57 adult maleprisoners.Results There was no significant difference in prisoners’ ratings of overall competenceof men and women officers. Of the PORS subscales, there were no gender differencesin Discipline and Control, Communication or Empathy, but there was a significantdifference in Professionalism, where prisoners rated women as more professional.Conclusion The failure to find any differences between men and women in overall jobcompetence, or on communication, empathy and discipline, as perceived by prisoners,suggests that men and women may be performing their jobs similarly in many respects.Women were rated as more professional, and items contributing to this scale related torespecting privacy and keeping calm in difficult situations, where there may be inherentgender biases.

Introduction

Seven years after the Sex Discrimination Act (1975), Her Majesty’s (HM)Prison Service introduced the cross-posting policy whereby prison officers could

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work in establishments with prisoners of the opposite sex (Enterkin, 1998). Thissuggested that women officers were capable of carrying out duties that had tradi-tionally been male dominated. The appropriateness, however, of womensupervising men and vice versa was doubted (Alpert and Crouch, 1991). Issueswere raised concerning rights of privacy and a woman’s physical disadvantage inthe control of male prisoners, as well as their efficacy (Szockyj, 1989). Suchnegative evaluations of women’s capabilities in male-specific occupations arenot restricted to the Prison Service (Zupan, 1986). Similar concerns have beenraised in the Police Service where women have tended to be posted in feminine-suitable positions (Enterkin, 1998). Without research to indicate otherwise,these concerns can only support the belief that women officers differ from menin their character and therefore in their capabilities to perform the same duties.However, gender-related differences need not necessarily adversely affect theircompetence or performance as prison officers.

The difficulty with the current research is that, because this area of work istraditionally a man’s job, women officers tend to be judged by their ability toemulate male officers’ behaviour and attitudes (Zimmer, 1986). Any researchattempting to identify gender differences is therefore vulnerable to this problemof measuring women’s effectiveness. Zimmer (1987) believes that the ‘structuraland discriminatory barriers’ that may exist for women in such environments andthe different experiences and skills they hold mean women will always performthe job differently from men. So, women may never perform their dutiessimilarly to men and, if compared with men, will therefore always be labelled asless effective. Women should be judged for how well they perform their duties,not how similarly they operate to men. For example, whilst men may have theadvantage of physical strength, women could prove their worth in the ‘normal-ization’ or ‘softening’ influence they have on the environment, thereby reducingthe likelihood of violent encounters (Kissel and Katsampes, 1980; Zupan, 1986;Carlen, 1998; Liebling and Price, 2001).

Further difficulties exist because of the lack of definite markers for measuringofficers’ performance. The job entails a wide range of tasks and a multitude ofskills are required for dealing with prisoners from different backgrounds andcultures, and with different mental and social capabilities. The various perspec-tives on officer performance determine what criteria are used to indicate officereffectiveness. For example, managers would view officer effectiveness differentlyfrom prisoners. There is no universally accepted, standardized measure of officerperformance.

Some studies suggest that women may influence prisoner behaviour andrelations with others, specifically that women’s style of communication andinteraction is beneficial in improving relations within the prison and bringsabout better behaviour by the prisoners (Liebling and Price, 2001). This affectslevels of conflict, suicides and assaults (Rowan, 1996; Shawver and Dickover,1996). Liebling and Price (2001) suggest the reason for this is that women’s

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presence and work style affect the sociodynamic relations. It has been suggestedthat women have a normalizing and softening effect which reduces hostility(Zupan, 1986). This suggests that women have either skills or qualities that themen do not have, or that their mere physical presence contributes in some way(Zupan, 1986).

Good staff–prisoner relations depend on factors such as individuality, trust,respect and openness (Pilling, 1992). Officers acknowledge that a mutual under-standing with prisoners and using interpersonal skills and personalized relationsare a superior method of achieving compliance (Liebling and Price, 2001). Jurik(1985) found that women had a more service-orientated, rehabilitative attitudetowards their job, whereas men regard their work more in terms of financial andjob security. Similarly, Walters (1992) found that men had a more custodialattitude than women officers as measured by the Custody Orientation Scale.However, research has also shown little gender difference with regard toattitudes towards prisoners (Zupan, 1986), or their responses and actions tominor incidents (Jenne and Kersting, 1998). Jenne and Kersting’s (1998) studywas based on officers’ self-reported predicted responses to written brief descrip-tions of incidents, which may be inconsistent with responses that officersactually make. In addition, such studies may offer information on actions ofofficers in certain situations but provide little on the nature of their social inter-actions with prisoners on a day-to-day basis. Rowan (1996) found no genderdifference in officers’ adherence to prison rules or procedures. This may bebecause all officers receive the same training and perform the same duties.

Using a questionnaire and interview method, Szockyj (1989) found thatofficers, prisoners and supervisors thought that the performance of womenofficers was comparable to or better than that of their male counterparts.Szockyj (1989) also found that women tended to be more sensitive to andrespectful of prisoners’ needs than male officers. Prisoners tended to be moreprotective of women officers than of men. Such behaviour towards womenofficers could be due to prisoners having nothing to gain from resisting femaleofficers’ requests, whereas being compliant with a male officer would be equatedwith a loss of machismo. It could also be due to a protective attitude towardswomen in general. Such conclusions, however, are based on research in one ortwo institutions and no official written records, such as rates of assault, exist tosupport such data. In addition, only nine women officers were involved in theSzockyj (1989) study, which is an insufficient sample to make generalizableassumptions about female staff.

Kissel and Ketsampes (1980) surveyed a small number of officers andprisoners in one Canadian institution. They found prisoners more verballyaggressive, but less physically aggressive, towards women than men officers. Thisis interesting considering that Jenne and Kersting (1996) found women officersto rely on force as often as male officers. Shawver and Dickover (1996)suggested that the lack of physical aggression towards women could be due to

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the approach tactics of women officers in confrontational situations, and malemachismo beliefs about not attacking women. Zimmer (1986) found thatprisoners perceived women officers as more friendly and better at interactionthan male officers. This resulted in improved prisoner behaviour around femalestaff.

The majority of studies supporting gender differences in staff–prisoner inter-actions between men and women officers are observational, where subjectiveperceptions or attitudes are gathered. Subtle differences could occur betweenmale and female officers in their interaction with prisoners that would bereported in ethnographic studies but which may not be revealed in job perfor-mance measurements. The reason for much of the quantitative data notshowing gender differences could be due to the difficulties in measuring andquantifying sociodynamic variables.

The lack of any significant gender differences in research but clear differ-ences in qualitative data suggest officer training, the prison, context andsocialization may act to reduce measurable gender-related differences. However,officers insist that, despite training, personal judgement and character play apart in some situations (Jenne and Kersting, 1998). For example, in practice,officers may not adhere strictly to rules or agreed procedures (despite claimingotherwise), which then obscures any real differences in officers’ practices. Ifsocialization were to explain lack of gender differences it would be seen thatofficers with a short career span would show greater gender differences thanofficers who had had longer careers. This was not the case in Zupan’s (1986)study. It seems more likely that the controlled conditions of quantitativeresearch might fail to capture all of the data, thereby making any gender differ-ences indistinguishable.

The study reported here examined prisoners’ perceptions of prison officers ina systematic way to test whether or not there are perceived gender0relateddifferences in overall prison officer competence. Competence in this studyreferred to officers’ ability to show proficiency in the relevant dimensions oftheir work. The need for quantitative measurement of gender differences on anumber of character dimensions was addressed by constructing the PrisonOfficer Competency Rating Scale (PORS). Pollock’s (1995) assumption thatmale and female officers supervise in different ways was tested. Based onprevious literature and exploratory interviews with prisoners, it was hypothe-sized that the officers’ gender would not significantly influence prisoners’ ratingsof overall officer competence, but that there would be differences in how menand women were perceived to perform their roles competently. The literaturesuggests that female officers take a more nurturing, more caring and less physicalapproach with prisoners and are more likely to use their inter-personal skills ofcommunication. Therefore, it was predicted that prisoners would rate men andwomen officers differently on dimensions of communication skills, empathy,and discipline and control. It was predicted that no such differences would be

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found for officer competence scores in the dimension of professionalism. Thereason for this was that professionalism is less concerned with interpersonalinteraction but more related to attitudes regarding the officer’s role within theprison.

Method

Participants

The research was conducted in HMP Wandsworth. Prisoners were randomlyselected by choosing every 10th person from the prison roll, giving 150 maleprisoners (10.8% of the prison’s total population). Of the 150 prisoners, 57responses were received (38%). Respondents were aged between 21 and 70 yearsand were serving sentences between six months and life.

Design

A cross-sectional design using a self-report survey methodology was used. Twoversions of the Prison Officer Competency Rating Scale (PORS) were given toeach prisoner – one relating to women and one to men officers. Scale scores forofficer competence in a number of sub-scale dimensions relevant to officers’duties and characteristics were compared. A Wilcoxon signed ranks test wasused for the analysis using SPSS, on the total scores for female and male compe-tence and test of difference on each dimension.

The Prison Officer Competency Rating Scale (PORS)

The PORS was constructed for this study to measure the views of prisoners.Based on relevant literature and exploratory interviews with 20 prisoners, a 40-item pool was compiled of officers’ skills and characteristics that were deemeddesirable and undesirable. To elicit the item pool, prisoners were asked: ‘Whatskills and qualities would you expect to see in a good officer?’ ‘What is it aboutthose prison officers that you may not like that is different from the ones thatyou do like?’ ‘What do you think are the most and least important qualitiesprison officers should have and why?’

The 40-item PORS was piloted by 41 prisoners. Twelve items were discardedbecause they were ambiguous to prisoners. Data were subjected to item analysisusing SPSS (Version 10), leading to a further four items being discarded(Robson, 1993). Each item was analysed for variance. A cut-off point forexclusion was set at 0.20, and no items were excluded on this count.

The remaining 24 items formed the PORS, with items grouped for scoring infour dimensions: (1) Professionalism (8 items), (2) Discipline and Control (5 items), (3) Communication Skills (6 items), and (4) Empathy (5 items).

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Items for Professionalism encapsulated those skills that described officerefficiency, proficiency, resourcefulness and capability at work. Discipline andControl described those items that related to control, regulation, order, restraintand authority over prisoners. Communication skills described those items thatinvolved interpersonal relations with prisoners and the dissemination of infor-mation. Empathy was included to describe those items that referred tounderstanding, sympathy and humanity of prisoners’ problems and status.Dimensions are not indicated on the PORS. Items are rated on a four-pointscale: Never (1), Sometimes (2), Often (3), or Always (4). A high score on thePORS indicates a high level of officer competence and the range is 56 to 224.Scores for Professionalism range between 8 and 32; for Discipline and Control, 5to 20; Communication skills, 6 to 24; and for Empathy, 5 to 20. The mean scorefound for the 41 respondents was 169. Cronbach’s alpha on the 24-item scalewas 0.88. The PORS is presented in Appendix A.

Procedure

Permission to conduct the research was obtained from the Governor and thewing managers. Prisoners were approached in their cells after evening mealtimeand were informed about the research, assured of confidentiality, and told oftheir right to withdraw from the research. The purpose of the study wasexplained and any questions answered. Each prisoner was then given a question-naire pack that included a written description of the research and instructionsfor completing the PORS. Completed questionnaires were collected at breakfastthe following day. Prisoners were asked to rate, in general, men and womenofficers, based on those they had met in HMP Wandsworth. Presentation of themale and female questionnaires was counterbalanced to minimize response seteffects.

Results

The total PORS scores of the sample produced a near normal distribution. Thefrequency of total scores demonstrates that women officers obtained higherratings of competence more frequently than men. There was, however, littleapparent difference between prisoners’ mean ratings of female and male overallcompetence (PORS male M = 65.89, SD= 12.73; PORS female M = 67.87, SD= 12.55).

Median scores for men and women respectively on each dimension were:Professionalism, 24 and 26; Discipline and Control, 12 and 13; Communication,16 and 16; and Empathy, 13 and 13; the latter two were the same for male andfemale prison officers. For Discipline and Control and Professionalism, themedian score was higher for female officers, which indicates that females wererated as more competent in these areas. The range for dimensions Discipline and

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Control and Empathy were spread similarly around the mean; however, in theProfessionalism and Communication dimensions, women officers obtained awider dispersion of scores than men.

Examination of each item on both versions of the PORS showed that 15 ofthe 24 items had identical mode values for men and women officers. Thus,prisoners perceived men and women officers as having similar competence inover half the skills investigated. Men had higher modal ratings for items ‘theirenthusiasm to listening’, ‘getting things done for the prisoners’, and ‘using theirauthority correctly’. Women had higher modal ratings for items ‘honesty’,‘avoiding arguments’, ‘remaining calm’, ‘sticking to the rules and regulations’,and ‘helping prisoners when they needed it’.

The hypotheses tested were two-tailed in that the prisoners’ ratings of femaleprison officer competence would be neither better nor worse than that of malePO competence. No direction was specified owing to the inconsistenciespresent in the existing literature. In each case the dependent variable wasgender and the independent variables were scores on each dimension and thetotal PORS score. As hypothesized, gender was not found to be a significantfactor in overall officer competency ratings, i.e. the total PORS score(Wilcoxon Z = 1.79, N-ties = 49, p = 0.074, two-tailed). Contrary to thepredicted findings, there were no significant differences between male andfemale competence scores for Discipline and Control (Wilcoxon Z = 1.716, N-ties = 43, p = 0.086, two-tailed), Communication (Wilcoxon Z = 0.150, N-ties = 49, p = 0.881, two-tailed), or Empathy (Wilcoxon Z = 0.773, N-ties =44, p = 0.440, two-tailed). There was, however, a significant difference betweenmale and female Professionalism competence scores (Wilcoxon Z = 2.961, N-ties = 43, p = 0.003, two-tailed).

Where significant differences emerged from the Wilcoxon test, post hoc testswere carried out using the Bonferroni correction (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001).The Type 1 error rate is 0.23. The adjusted significance level is therefore 0.05/5= 0.01. Therefore, any p values equal to or below 0.01 are significant. Even withthis adjustment, the difference on the Professionalism dimension remainedsignificant (Wilcoxon Z = 2.961, N-ties = 43, p = 0.003, two-tailed).

Discussion

This study attempted to provide quantitative insight into perceptions of womenofficers’ effectiveness in supervising prisoners. No studies exist that focus onmen and women officers’ competence from the prisoners’ perspective. Thisresearch was able to begin to identify in what areas of officers’ work prisonerssaw gender differences. As predicted, no difference was found between men andwomen officers’ overall competence. However, contrary to what had beenhypothesized, prisoners’ ratings of officers’ competence did not differ by genderin the dimensions of Discipline and Control, Communication, or Empathy.

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Unexpectedly, it was found that prisoners rated women officers as significantlymore professional than men. This supports the view that men and womenofficers are equally competent at their duties, but that in some respects theydiffer in how they carry out those duties.

High scores on the Professionalism dimension indicate women officers to bemore honest, better able to avoid argumentative situations, better able to remaincalm in difficult situations with prisoners, more respectful of prisoners’ privacy,better at getting things done for prisoners, smarter and more presentable, andmore polite with prisoners. If women officers are physically disadvantaged, then itis plausible they may avoid argumentative situations likely to lead to physicalconfrontation and be able to remain calm in difficult situations. Previous researchhas found women officers less likely to argue with prisoners; however, the sameresearch suggested that prisoners are less confrontational with female staff (Kisseland Ketsampes, 1980). The observed differences regarding privacy could beexplained by women officers avoiding entering shower rooms or cells whenprisoners are only partially or fully clothed, and so privacy is not the problem itwas potentially thought to be when women supervise male prisoners.

Why is gender a factor on one dimension and not others? It could be that asmen and women work together they adopt similar working strategies. Also, HMPrison Service is more vociferous regarding standards of fairness and humanitythan it has ever been, and therefore all officers have had to adopt a more caringattitude (Liebling and Price 2001). Consequently, officers may have become moresimilar in their practices. Why, then, have differences remained in theProfessionalism dimension? Possible reasons for this are that this dimensioninvolved ‘privacy’ and ‘remaining calm’, which, as already explained, may lead tobiases in favour of women officers. Another explanation for higher profession-alism scores is that women, in their efforts to appear as able as men in supervisingprisoners, are making concerted efforts to improve their performance in carryingout their duties.

The present research confirms earlier research findings that male and femaleofficers are equal in effectiveness in their duties but differ in their style of super-vision (Szockyj, 1989). The research contradicted Pollock’s (1995) finding thatwomen officers have a more nurturing and individualized approach, and Szockyj’s(1989) and Zimmer’s (1986) research showing that women officers were morerespectful and sensitive in their communication with and treatment of prisoners.

The findings here lent tentative weight to socialization and trainingreducing any gender differences. Similarity between officers across three of thedimensions could be explained by the increased orientation towards rehabili-tation with greater emphasis on programmes and education, so increasing theimportance of empathetic and communicative skills. Therefore, male officersmay have learnt to enhance these skills in line with female prison officers.

Certain study design factors may account for the lack of gender differencesobserved. Prisoners’ feedback reported difficulties in rating officers according to

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gender, believing behaviour was more determined by individual characteristics.In retrospect, it would have been beneficial to ask respondents to have ratedindividual officers and then analysed the data according to gender. Similarly,the transient population at HMP Wandsworth could have meant prisoners hadinadequate knowledge of officers on which to evaluate them. Furthermore, thelow response rate may have been unable to capture the full range of perceptionsindicated in exploratory interviews. The low response rate was expected owingto low levels of literacy and frequency of poor response rates found with otherprisoner research conducted in this way. Attempts were made to increaseresponse rate by providing help with filling in the forms and for every returnedform to be entered into a draw for a bag of canteen items. The individual socio-dynamics of every prison means such findings may differ from other prisons, andother studies are needed for comparison.

In conclusion, these findings provided some support for the proposition thatprisoners do not perceive gender to be an important factor in overall officercompetence, even though a gender-related difference was found for thedimension of Professionalism. As far as male prisoners are concerned, men andwomen officers at HMP Wandsworth are equally capable.

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Szockyj E (1989) Working in a man’s world: women correctional officers in an institution formen. Canadian Journal of Criminology 31: 319–328.

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Address correspondence to: Elizabeth Boyd, HMP Wandsworth, HeathfieldRoad, PO Box 757, Wandsworth, London SW18 3HS. Email: lizboyd@aol.com.

Appendix A: Prison Officers Rating Scale

Look at the statements and then rate officers at HMP Wandsworth in general for that ability on ascale of 1 to 4, where 4 is the highest score and 1 the lowest. Please indicate your answer bycircling the appropriate score.

1 = Never demonstrates this behaviour2 = Sometimes demonstrates this behaviour3 = Often demonstrates this behaviour4 = Always demonstrates this behaviour

(1) Being unfriendly towards me 1 2 3 4 (2) Treat me as a person (e.g. acknowledges that I have feelings) 1 2 3 4 (3) Not having patience with me 1 2 3 4 (4) Understanding what it’s like being a prisoner 1 2 3 4 (5) Being dishonest (e.g. not being straight with me) 1 2 3 4 (6) Being inconsistent in their temperament (e.g. being moody) 1 2 3 4 (7) Not giving clear instructions 1 2 3 4 (8) Ability to avoid getting into an argument with me 1 2 3 4 (9) Ability to remain calm in a difficult situation 1 2 3 4 (10) Respecting my privacy 1 2 3 4 (11) Keenness to use physical restraint 1 2 3 4 (12) Showing me respect as a person rather than a prisoner 1 2 3 4 (13) Showing unprofessional behaviour 1 2 3 4 (14) Shouting at me rather than talking 1 2 3 4 (15) Being irrational 1 2 3 4 (16) Looking smart and presentable 1 2 3 4 (17) Speaking to me in an impolite way 1 2 3 4 (18) Being lazy as opposed to being busy 1 2 3 4 (19) Sticking to the rules and regulations of the prison 1 2 3 4 (20) Having a sense of humour 1 2 3 4 (21) Getting things done for me (e.g. cell moves and applications) 1 2 3 4 (22) Not helping me out when I need help 1 2 3 4 (23) Being approachable (e.g. allowing opportunities for me to talk with them) 1 2 3 4 (24) Using their authority in the correct way 1 2 3 4

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