ABSTRACT

This chapter suggests that policies beneficial to corrections officers are sometimes at odds with other essential services that government must also provide. It considers ethical obligations that correctional administrators may have not only toward correction officers but also to the larger society of which the prison system is part. The chapter discusses the way in which the growing privatization of corrections and the influence of private capital have complicated and obscured the effectuation of ethical behavior by corrections administrators. Kevin Wright says that a crucial ethical obligation of prison officials is to provide due process in cases in which it becomes necessary to discipline correction officers. Wright also suggests other seemingly straightforward moral guidelines. The corrections manager cannot so easily get off the hook by projecting such difficult decisions onto other governmental managers. Correctional privatization has both advantages and disadvantages for public sector corrections administrators.