The National Association for Female Correctional Officiers is an advocacy group for female correctional officers. They want to improve the working conditions of women working in prisons in terms of sexual harassment and implementing new technology. On the About Us section of their website they are a 100% volunteer organization which may mean they are a non-profit. Either way their mission is to improve conditions of which women correctional officers work under. The official title of their Federal Legislative Proposal is the “the Rae and Sexual Assault of Female Correctional Officers Elimination Act of 2008” as stated on their website. They call for a zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse or harassment towards women who work in prisons. Other topics the bill addresses are anti-rape, increase available data on sexual incidences, and punish those prisoners who commit such sexual acts. The NAFC calls for the United States Department of Justice to prosecute all rape and sexual harassment charges. To do so, they want federal grants from state and local governments to help with this prosecution. Some of the new technologies this advocacy group wants to instate are more safety and defense equipment. Such items are resistant vests and electric control devices which would deter such sexual harassment.
Although the issues brought up by the National Association for Female Correctional Officers are important and should be considered by legislatures, Britton offers a more general approach to dealing with gendered prisons. She believes prisons need to be restructured because as of now they are gendered due to culture, agency, and structure. She believes prisons are negatively portrayed in the media, as well as prison workers. She believes the jobs assigned to those who work in prisons should not be based on gender because it leads to problems in prisons. Britton does not mention that women officers should be more armed then men. Overall, both the NAFCO and Britton believe our prison system needs much help.
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I totally agree with you and Britton and the NAFCO. Prisons do need more reform and a definite shift in policies to protect female officers. If the facilities that house the female prisoners have been reformed to better serve them because women obviously have different needs than men, then it is necessary that we do the same for the female officers that are employed in these facilities. I don't understand why the Department of Justice has not created a review committee of their own to address these issues, why do the women need to fight for what they are entitled to-protection.
ReplyDeleteBecause the prisons are structured from the ground up, I believe that the prisons and prison officials feel they have to remain gender-neutral and therefore they don't address the seriousness of sexual harrasment as they may tend to believe that it only became an issue when women starting working in the prisons and they should then take themselves out of that environment to solve that problem. Again, I agree there is still a lot of work to be done.