The correctional orientation of prison wardens: Is the rehabilitative ideal supported

Over the past two decades, the ideology ostensibly governing correctional policy has been transformed, it is claimed, from liberal-rehabilitative to _ conservative-punitive. Little empirical information is available, however, r i ( (/I on whether those who manage correctional institutions—prison wardens— manifest a punitive or reformative orientation to their work. Data from a national survey indicate that, while placing a prime emphasis on main-taining custody and institutional order, wardens remain supportive of rehabilitation. Levels of support for treatment, moreover, are only mod-estly influenced by individual, career, organizational, and contextual variables. Academic studies of prison life have done much to illuminate the nature and dynamics of the "society of captives, " but only in the past decade or so have a substantial number of researchers broadened their investigations to include the keepers as well as the kept. This research has revised prevailing caricatures of the guardians of the prison order and deepened our under