The Professionalization of Canadian Correctional Officers: 1920s – 1960s

Prison guards play a key role in prisons as they are situated directly between prisoners and prison administration.This project examines the early history of the professionalization of Canadian prison guards.It looks at early discussions amongst prison and government officials, efforts that were taken to create training programs and the implementation of those programs.The discussions of prison guard training began to increase in the 1920s in Canada, but it was not until the 1930s that we begin to see efforts to try to gather information to produce training programs.These efforts came at a time when prison conditions were at an all-time low across the country resulting in multiple riots and disturbances.Due to major media coverage and multiple government investigations, over the next few decades, different programs were developed.By the 1950s Canada saw its very first prison guard training school. Chapter One: IntroductionPenitentiary officers play an essential role in prisons around the world, as they are the first point of contact for prisoners and are situated directly between prisoners and administration.Just as the police are the law enforcers of society, prison guards play a similar role in prisons.In academic research prison guards were historically overlooked until recent decades. 1 Much of the literature was and remains prisoner focused. 2 In the latter part of the 20 th century and beyond, there was a shift of focus towards prison guards.3 Although prison guard-related research is becoming more prevalent, the research focuses on topics such as prison guard characteristics and attitudes (towards administration and prisoners), 4 role conflict, 5 and gender differences in prisons, 6 for example.With more attention being paid to prison guards, what remains lacking is a focus on their training and on the professionalization of the prison guard occupation.This is not to say there is no research available at all on the training of prison guards, 7 but that it is 1 James B. Jacobs and Harold G. Retsky, "Prison Guard," Urban Life 4, no. 1 (1975): 5. 2 Completing a search between the years 1900 and 2018, when looking for data regarding prison guards/correctional officers and Canada, this produced over 308 thousand hits.This is substantially different from the results obtained when searching prisoners/inmates and Canada, which produced over 1, 241 thousand hits.3 See Hatam notes 6 and 8.With the exception of the work of C. W. Topping, citations available in both notes demonstrate the point that most of the available prison guard literature is from the latter part of the 20 th century.4 Eric G. Lambert et al., "Satisfied Correctional Staff: A Review of the Literature on the Correlates of Correctional Staff Job Satisfaction," Criminal Justice and Behavior 22, no. 2 (2002): 115. 5 John R. Hepburn and Celesta Albonetti, "Role Conflict in Correctional Institutions: An Empirical Examination of the Treatment-Custody Dilemma among Correctional Staff," Criminology 17, no. 4 (1980): 447.6 Linda L. Zupan, "Gender-Related Differences in Correctional Officers' Perception and Attitudes," Journal of Criminal Justice 14, no. 4 (1986): 349-361.7 C. W. Topping, "The Report of the Royal Commission on the Penal System of Canada," The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/ Revue canadienne d'Economique et de Science politique 4, no. 3 (1938): 551-559; Merritt Gilman, "Problems and Progress in Staff Training," Crime and Delinquency 12, no. 2 (1966): 254-260; James B. Jacobs, and Harold G

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