Inmates vs. The Guards

Inmates vs. The Guards

Blog post by Justin Chacon

Researching prisoner experiences with prison officers: An action research-inspired approach” (Drake, 2014) is an interesting article about prisoners and prison officer’s experiences with each other. Even though the prisoners are convicted of their wrongdoings, the study aims to provide data that can help the officers better understand the pain of being imprisoned from the perspective of the prisoners (Drake, 2014).

Throughout the study the prisoners and guards were being followed by the researcher(s) in order to generate data. Because the researcher(s) worked alongside the prisoners and officers, they were able to place themselves in the shoes of the participants by going along the day with them. This article can be helpful for Ph.D. students that are looking into action research because it shows how a researcher can put themselves into the setting they are studying.

There are many stories about interactions between cops and people. Could it be we only hear about the bad cops? Why is that? Are wrongful arrests taking place? Are all prisoners bad? This article can be helpful to people and researchers to better understand the perspectives of both the officers and prisoners.


Blog post by Justin Chacon

Justin Chacon is a Ph.D. student at the University of Incarnate Word. He is currently an adjunct at UIW in the Kinesiology department.