Abstract
The intricacies of criminal etiology and prison management require the level of knowledge, skills, and ethics associated with professionalism as a sociological concept. The criteria of the professions are applied to the correctional service to demonstrate this. To assess the degree of professionalization found among adult prisons, the ratio of prisoners per staff member is employed for various types of staff for the major regions. Highly irregular patterns and a generally low level of professionalization are revealed. The major obstacles to further professionalization include the lack of psychological unity among the various classes of personnel in corrections and the inadequacy of training programs. M OTIVATIONS behind the frequent advocacy of professionalization of the --M.. v correctional services include the desire to improve the quality of administration and treatment, promotion of job tenure and working conditions of existing personnel, and raising of * Read at annual meeting of Southern Sociological Society, April 1961, this paper was developed in conjunction with a special project of the North Carolina Prison Department supported by Grant OM-397 from the National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health
Published Version
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