New Jack: An Analysis of Ted Conover's Time Spent at Sing Sing

Naturally when there are several gangs coexisting in a close environment, tension is sure to arise. Violent behavior then breaks out, and inmates are disciplined and penalized, by their supervisors. This increases the disparity between inmate and correction officer. Conover, came to believe that, rather than severe punishment, reinforcement was the best option. But with this theory comes obvious uncertainty. Because violence in prison is so dangerous not only for the inmates themselves, but for those who work in the prison, a corrections officer like Conover would still be torn between what he learned in the academy, and his newly found interpretation of how to "correct" a criminal. It's difficult to say that the regulations inmates are supposed to be governed by are ideal for a correctional facility, because the rules aren't necessarily made by corrections officers. They're written by outsiders; someone involved in the field of correction, but also someone who's lacking the experience gained by one on one prolonged interaction with inmates. Because of this, those laws are made to only control convicts. …