The New Zealand Prison Officer Cadet Training Scheme
| Published date | 01 March 1971 |
| Date | 01 March 1971 |
| Author | Neil Cameron |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486587100400105 |
AUST. &N.Z. JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (March, 1971): 4, 1
The
New Zealand
Prison
Officer
Cadet
Training
Scheme'
NEIL CAMERON**
35
IN
recent
years
there
has
been
an
increasing
tendency to
regard
penal
systems as
"advanced"
or otherwise, largely on
the
basis of
such
factors as
the
range
of
alternative
sentences open to
the
courts, especially
in
relation
to young offenders,
and
by
the
availability of various facilities of a
sup-
posedly rehabilitative
nature
within
the
penal
institutions
themselves. Ex-
cept
in
the
field of
probation
and, to a lesser
extent,
child welfare, discussion
of
the
quality
and
training
of
the
necessary
staff
has
been decidedly muted.
It
may
be
trite
to
say
that
it
is
men
not
walls
that
make
aprison,
but
the
fact
remains
that
the
recruitment,
training
and
conditions of work of
the
prison officer,
and
in
particular
the
basic grade custodial officer,
are
subjects
that
have
been
little canvassed of late, even
within
the
service itself.
Traditionally
an
analogy
has
been
drawn
between
the
prison
service
on
the
one
hand,
and
the
police on
the
other.
Clearly, as
with
the
police,
the
work is generally hazardous,
unpleasant
in
nature,
of low social
status
and
comparatively poorly paid.
If
one
adds
to
this
basic
unattractiveness
the
fact
that
the
educational
system generally seems to
militate
against
the
recruitment
of
the
more
intelligent school-leavers
into
either
service,
it
is
clear
that
both
are
faced
with
serious
recruitment
problems
which
by
their
very
nature
will
get
worse as
each
service comes to require
greater
skills
of
its
members. However, whereas
the
police generally seem to be
attempt-
ing
to do
something
about
this
situation
by way of intensive
cadet
training
courses
and
by
the
increasing
use of university facilities, prison services,
al-
though
facing
almost
identical
problems,
have
tended
to
retain
the
classical
methods
of
recruitment
and
training.
This
means
relying
on
the
existence
of
mature
men
and
women who will wish to
enter
the
service between
the
ages of 25-35
and
who
need
only be given a
rapid
course
in
the
Acts
and
Regulations before being placed
in
the
field.
It
is clear by
now
that
this
is, from
most
points of view,
an
unsatisfac-
tory
system. By age 25-30
much
of
the
really
good
material
is
already
settled
in
another
job,
has
achieved a
certain
amount
of seniority,
gained
a wife
and
children
and
shudders
at
the
thought
of
returning
to
the
bottom
of
the
ladder. More
important
still, in a
prison
system
whose avowed
aim
is
the
reformation
of
the
offender,
it
is obvious
that
abrief course
in
the
Acts
and
Regulations
in
no way equips
the
new prison officer to
take
his
proper
place
*Igratefully acknowledge the considerable help
that
I have received from
the
staff
at the Training Centre, Wellington, and from
the
Justice Department. The opinions
expressed in this note are, of course, those of the
author
alone and should in no
way
be taken to
represent
the views of
either
the
Justice
Department or
the
staff of
the
Centre.
** Ll.M. Lecturer in Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
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