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F- THE PROFESSONAL MAGE OF THE CORRECTONAL EDUCATOR Douglas K. Griffin, Ph.D. Chief A'cadernic Education The Corractionai Service of Canada Ottawa LFBRARY SOLCTOfi GENERAL CANADA ) 9% BBUOFLUUE SOWCTEUR GBERAL CANADA OTTAWA (WARM) KlA OP8 HV 8883 G7i 979 Address made at the 979 conference of the.american Correctional Education Assoc:ation, Region V, in Salem, Ore,..7cn. September, 979
Flq (9 THE PROFESSONAL MAGE OF THE CORRECTONAL EDUCATOR / One of a series of documents published by the Education and Training Division of the Correctional Service of Canada, Ottawa, explaining the nature and role of correctional education. Douglas K. Griffin, Ph.D. Chief, Academic Education The Correctional Service of Canada 340 Laurier Avenue West Ottawa, Ontario KlA 0 P9 63-996-7345 LBRARY MNSTRY OF THE SOLCTOR GENERAL OF CANADA This address was made at the 979 conference of the American Correctional Education Association, Region V, in Salem, Oregon, September, 979. BCLOTHEOUE MNSTÈRE DU SOLLCTEUR GENERAL DU CANADA OTTAWA. ONTARO CANADA K A 0F8 Copyright of this document does not belong to the Crown. Proper authorization must be obtained from the author for any intended use Les droits d'auteur du présent document n'appartiennent pas à l'état. Toute utilisation du contenu du présent document doit être approuvée préalablement nar l'auteur.
SUMMARY Advertising images often distort the facts, but the term "image" has a useful meaning. One's image depends on what one is coffipared with. Correctional educators are compared with other correctional workers and with other educators. When they represent the best aspects of corrections, and of education as well, their professional image will be secure.
THE PROFESSONAL MAGE OF THE CORRECTONAL EDUCATOR D. K. Griffin, Ph.D., Chief, Academic Education, the Correctional Service of Canada. Presented at: Correctional Education Association - Conference, Region V, Salem, Oregon, September 20, 979. The world of American advertising has revised the meaning of the English word "image". "mage" originally meant a representation of something as it really is, and it has come to mean a representation of something as it really isn't. When we say that a politician has changed his image, we mean that he is still trying to pretend to be somebody he really isn't, but that he used to be pretending to be somebody else. prefer to leave aside this pejorative connotation of the word "image". acknowledge that the Madison Avenue "image maker" is the modern equivalent of a snake oil salesman, or a carpet bagger, but it is also possible to deal with the term in a positive manner, and that is what prefer to do. The term does have a useful, and substantive element. lived for several years in a small town in North Africa. n the town there were only two American cars, owned by affluent locals. One was a six-year-old Buick Lesabre, and the other was a four-year-old Chevrolet mpala. want you to know that in that setting, on the edge of the Sahara desert, where the average salary was forty dollars a month, these were very elegant automobiles, and they bestowed an enviable image.../2
-2- on their owners. returned to America by way of New York City. As drove through Manhatten, and out into the suburbs, noticed several cars identical to the two that had appeared so impressive in my Moroccan town. n New York these. same cars conveyed a very different image. They were rather rusty, and sad. They could not compete, in elegance, with the newer, shinier models. Their image was dramatically different because one was no longer comparing them with mobylettes; donkey - carts, and limping Simcas. The point am making is that one's image is the product of a comparison; it is a relative thing. believe that we can correctly understand the professional image of the correctional educator when we understand it in relative terms. We are compared, suggest, with two different groups of peers, and in both cases we have allowed the comparisons to be made to our disadvantage. Correctional educators are compared with other correctional workers, and with other educators. n both cases we are a minority group. Being few in number, we have tended to adopt the perspectives of the larger groups, and have tended to believe that our role is insignificant. To security-minded correctional staff, we represent at best a frill, and at worst a nuisance, in the "ser-i-ous business" of custody. was reminded of this recently on a visit to a maximum-security prison in Canada. had written a paper shortly before, entitled "Can Corrections be Correctional?", and had distributed it to our teaching staff.. A copy of my paper was on the prison Director's desk. Below the title of the paper, "Can Corrections be Correctional?", the prison Director had written,../3
-3- "Do Cows Fly?". This had both encouraging and discouraging aspects, for me. was encouraged to find a member of our staff actually confident that he could answer both these questions; was discouraged that he was so sure that both answers were the same. We have allowed ourselves to be compared unfavourably with other corrections workers, and this is a mistake. n the view of a large number of correctional administrators, the very use of the word "corrections" is accepted as a sham. believe that we cannot be professional if we become this cynical. We spend, in the Correctional Service of Canada, an average of $30,000.00 per inmate, per year. This expenditure can only begin to be justified if we are actually engaged in "corrections", and not simply in "custody". There are far cheaper ways of keeping people locked up. Even as custodians, correctional educators do pretty well. n a recent incident in Canada, some teachers and one custodial officer were taken hostage. The young custodial officer became hysterical, and the inmates released him because he was getting on their nerves. The teachers, meanwhile, calmly corrected the spelling in the inmates' list of demands, and persuaded the inmates to give themselves up. (One inmate said later that if you take a teacher hostage, you should tape his mouth shut, or he'll talk you out of it.) Teachers normally spend their days with a dozen or so inmates. Many correctional officers would refuse to do this. A letter-opener found in a cell may be construed as a weapon, by custodial staff, while vocational teachers spend their days surrounded by the most lethal objects imaginable..../4
-4- believe that re-education is the essential element of corrections. Correctional educators may be the only group left in the criminal justice world who actually believe in what they are doing. Although administrators have almost totally abandoned the use of words such as "prison", and "guard", in favour of more euphemistic terms such as "correctional centre" and "correctional officer", they seem to use the word "correctional" as if it had lost all meaning. On another front, the term seems to have been rejected by the treatment staff as well. Most psychologists and social workers who sought to cure criminals through therapy have abandoned such efforts. Most of them now restrict their goals to the provision of services to their "clients", and try to respond to the offender's own definition of his needs. The custodians have referred to adopted correctional terminology without'accepting its meaning. The treatment staff have referred to once accepted the meaning, but now are largely abandoning it, because their methods were not effective. The correctional educators, tolerated somewhat reluctantly by both these groups, are the only ones who maintain a correctional perspective. What will happen to us in the future will depend upon our response to the existing conceptual vacuum in corrections. f we choose to, we can step into the gap in the lines, and declare our value and our importance to the correctional process. believe that the provision of a correctional system is one of the obligations of a civilized society, and that the essence of corrections is re-education. t would be easier, and it would make us more popular with our peers, to say that corrections */5
-5- is either unnecessary, or impossible, but happen to believe this would be professionally irresponsible. Having dealt with comparisons between ourselves and other correctional staff, would like now to deal with comparisons with other educators. Educators have usually been unconvinced that we are really part of the world of education. n fact, many of them seem to be unaware - of our existence. wish first of all to point out that educational systems seem to come under the greatest attack when they either follow the economic order too closely, (as when the lower social classes are denied educational opportunities) or when they fail to follow the economic order closely enough, (by failing to provide students with saleable skills). Correctional education has been cniticized on both accounts: for failing to respond to the actual capabilities of prisoners, and for allowing them to be released without saleable skills. was for a time the sole teacher in a prison in Canada, and had the opportunity of getting to know my students extremely well. became convinced then, and have remained convinced ever since that the unemployability of released inmates is not due primarily to a lack of skills. Rather, believe that it is due to the inmate's prevailing mis-understanding of the world and of himself, and of his relation to the world. The vast majority of our prisoners are people who have had ample opportunity in their lives to learn the simple skills required to find a job in our society. ( speak for Canada; the economic situation may be different in the United States). Their failure to learn marketable skills has resulted neither from a lack of ability, nor from a lack of opportunity, to do so, for the great majority of the inmates who.../6
-6- voluntarily come to our prison schools. f we were to engage in the kind of educational programs that would really be effective in dealing with the causes of inmate unemployability, we would have no problem with, our professional image in the world of education. What would be required would be a genuinely educational undertaking. t would be an effort to change the«offender's basic understanding of the world, of himself, and of his relation to the world. t would be an effort to develop our students' ability to deal with the world conceptually, rather than concretely. t would be an effort to help students learn to make responsible decisions, and to deal with ethical and moral issues. t would be, in fact, that dying species, education. am not suggesting that we ignore skill training. am suggesting that it should not be our primary focus, as it has been in the past. We should focus rather on understandings, meanings, and values, and we should do so in all educational modes: elementary, secondary, postsecondary, and vocational. An impeccable professional image as educators would be assured us if correctional educators were to address the real educational needs of offenders. have not attempted here any discussion of how these goals might be achieved, but if our programs could actually achieve the goals have described, we would be leading the educational world, rather than clutching after its ragged coattails. After all, we do have the most difficult students in our respective countries. We should have the educational world coming to us for advice. make no apology for my idealism. Even a cynic is really just an idealist who has given up. haven't given up, and don't intend to..../7
-7- n closing, let me say that believe that corrections is essentially re-education, and that education is essentially correction. f we represent the best of both these worlds, our professional image cannot help but be bright. Thank you very much. -
/ SOL CANADA i L 3 [0 0 000088 HV 8883 G7 979 E The professional image of the correctional educator /