Not behind bars

Not Behind Bars situates “corrections” as a form of violence work. In doing so, we question the carceral habitus of those employed as “corrections officer”, particularly through a look at guards of prisons and jails. Through an exploration of the ritualized violence that guards perform and witness, we argue that the carceral habitus of guards form a corrective code. Unlike others who carry this habitus, the corrective code travels home each day, not at the end of one sentence. Ultimately, this paper argues that abolitionists are better served by analyzing the harms caused and experienced by employment as corrections officer than by discounting the group. A rippling effect of carcerality may be found in the regular travel of corrective violence into the relationships, homes and communities of prison guards. As a demographic disproportionately experiencing structural and domestic abuse, the families of these violence workers may form natural allies in the movement to combat carcerality.