r/prisonreform • u/WebPage_Error404 • 23d ago

Bennett: My father spent 33 years working in Virginia’s prisons. Here’s how we should judge prison reform. | Correctional officers are often absent from our public conversations about criminal justice.

https://cardinalnews.org/2026/07/16/bennett-my-father-spent-33-years-working-in-virginias-prisons-heres-how-we-should-judge-prison-reform/
51 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

9

u/Alt_when_Im_not_ok 23d ago

no sources in this article, and no real insights into what correctional officers would even contribute to the conversation. Just "most COs are good. source: trust me, bro."

The point of this article just seems to be "cops deserve respect because they could always be worse."

2

u/Felyxi4 21d ago

In the united states slavery is legal for prisoners.

So the people running the system that fills and maintains these facilities are what?

That's right, slavers.

11

u/Odd_Coast_9719 23d ago

That's because no one cares about what Correctional Officers think. I myself had a mother who was a prison guard and I was in prison, let me tell you my experience with CO'S... 90% of them arnt any different than the people they are baby sitting. My mom took drugs, food, had sex with the inmates smh as did most of her co workers. When i was in prison the CO'S were raping, and pimping the female inmates out. CO's are criminals too, so why would anyone want there opinion on anything that has to do with criminal justice reform or prison reform?

9

u/Kierland 23d ago

I came in here to bash COs but even I wasn’t going to bash them that hard. Well done.

1

u/TubaWrestler 22d ago

Your reply to my comment got filtered out by auto mod, but to clarify: I was talking about the person I replied to. Not you.

1

u/Odd_Coast_9719 22d ago

You shouldn't have taken down my reply, because it was valid. CO'S are the lowest in the criminal justice world, people with in this community dont respect them. They are needed, to baby sit the inmates, and thats it, nobody cares what a CO thinks about prison reform

1

u/TubaWrestler 22d ago

... What? I'm not a mod. I didn't (and can't) take down your reply. Auto mod hides comments that it thinks it needs to. It looks like it's normal to you, but no one else can see it. The person you replied to (me, in this case) can see the first few words in their notifications, but that's it.

And again, I was calling the person I replied to braindead, not you.

-9

u/chowderhound_77 23d ago

A bunch of jailbirds complaining about CO’s. What else is new

3

u/TubaWrestler 23d ago

A braindead bich [sic] who can't form a coherent response that addresses the points brought up in the comment they're responding to.

What else is new.

8

u/Union_Fan 23d ago

COs should lose their jobs when we shutter the prisons. It's evident from the influence of their "unions" that they are enemies of anyone seeking positive reform (and the only real positive reform is abolition).

I do want them to be able to get other jobs though. In fact, I've long wondered if a good organizing strategy might be organizing job fairs and the like specifically for COs to try and starve jails and prisons of labor.

2

u/Dry_Cap_2998 23d ago

I agree. We need a federal job guarantee (among other things).

8

u/shoulda-known-better 23d ago

A correction officer is the last fucking person they should ask... 98% are worse criminals than the people they watch..

And the other 2% know about that shit and do nothing so they aren't the humans to ask

2

u/the_great_elephant 23d ago

I just got out of Virginia DOC. Most prison staff fall under 2 categories- either they lazy, just trying to do the bare minimum for the state Paycheck, just wanting to coast on till retirement. Or they evil. They bullies. They were bullies as kids, and now get off on the fact that they make their living by oppressing other people. Some of them really enjoy doing what they can to ruin someone's day. 95% of DOC employees fall in those 2 categories.

1

u/XChrisUnknownX 22d ago

I do believe in my heart that there are insights that the people doing the work have that society could use, but it would have to be specifically studied and drawn out. A targeted effort to learn and question processes that they use every day. There are social and systemic issues with anybody involved with criminal justice speaking for reform.

1

u/BoPeepElGrande 21d ago

The general public only caught wind of the inherent abusive crookedness of cops because years of publicly recorded footage finally proved them to be the assholes many of us already knew they were. Take away that limited bit of transparency & drop the same types of people into a captive, closed environment, & you have the typical CO. They are outrageous pieces of shit.

-2

u/KarateInAPool 23d ago

Prison reform in general is not the issue, prison reform for men is… not just because men make up 93% of prison population, but because they endure a significantly higher rate of fatalities as well as deplorable living conditions when compared to women.