In this particular blog chapter six discusses Ethics in Corrections. What should be the basis for an ethical system of guarding prisoners? The first factor is the need to protect the staff and consider security the dominant purpose of a prison. When dealing with ethics in corrections there are three models of incarceration that has predominated since the early years: custodial, rehabilitation, and reintegration. Each reflects one style of institutional organization. For example, the custodial model assumes that prisoners have been incarcerated for the purpose of incapacitation, deterrence, or retribution. The rehabilitation model emphasizes treatment programs designed to reform the offender. Lastly, the reintegration model is linked to the structure and goals of community corrections. This particular model emphasizes maintaining offenders’ ties to family and community. It is noteworthy that I mention that we can find correctional facilities that build off each of these models. However, with my evolvement and communication with those affiliated with the prison system it appears that most prisons are mainly custodial. Most likely because it emphasizes security, discipline, and order, which subordinate the prisoner to guards and higher authority.

 Corrections is a people-processing operation, its personnel are its resource. A number of studies have attempted to explain the basis and nature of this coercive power and authority. It is the exercise of this power that creates ethical issues and dilemmas. The most obvious fact about the prison environment is that guards are vested with power and authority over the prisoners which they exercise power to control inmates in accordance with prison rules and regulations. Our text discusses five forms of guard power: legitimate, coercive, reward, expert, and referent. With legitimate power, guards are invested with authority to command as a result of their position as a guard of prisoners. It is the position of guard itself within the institutional structure that confers the right to give instructions and to be obeyed. In short, a guard's command are obeyed because they are the commands of a guard, and prisoners comply by virtue of their status as prisoners. Prisons are expected to be impersonal, quasi-military organizations where strict discipline, minimal amenities, and restrictions on freedom carry out the punishment.

 Subsequently, because prisons are expected to pursue many different and often incompatible goals, it would seem that they are almost doomed to fail.