Correctional scholarship has demonstrated concern over the dehumanizing implications of the carceral state for incarcerated people. This concern has been paralleled by an interest in understanding the work of prison staff and how correctional subculture may play an active role in prison dehumanization. By drawing from focus groups from all prisons in one state, we investigate how correctional staff construct and manage their identity through “us–them” ideologies. We find that staff leverage negative attitudes toward the incarcerated, and that these attitudes were underpinned by sensational cultural stories and epithets. Moreover, we find that staff use “othering” toward the incarcerated as a means to construct a warped badge of honor, which illustrates the burdens they bear from prison work and which frames themselves as heroes, guardians, and protectors. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings, where we consider how dehumanization illustrates the mental coping work staff endure to carry out the symbolic violence and dehumanizing objectives of the carceral system.

中文翻译：

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“我们把噩梦关在笼子里”：惩教文化、身份和扭曲的荣誉徽章*

惩教学术已经表现出对监禁国家对被监禁者的非人性化影响的关注。这种担忧与对理解监狱工作人员的工作以及惩教亚文化如何在监狱非人化中发挥积极作用的兴趣相平行。通过从一个州的所有监狱中抽取焦点小组，我们调查了惩教人员如何通过“我们-他们”的意识形态来构建和管理他们的身份。我们发现工作人员利用对被监禁者的负面态度，而这些态度受到耸人听闻的文化故事和绰号的支持。此外，我们发现工作人员对被监禁者使用“他者”作为一种手段来构建一个扭曲的荣誉徽章，这说明了他们从监狱工作中承担的负担，并将自己塑造成英雄、监护人、和保护者。最后，我们讨论了我们的研究结果的含义，我们在其中考虑非人性化如何说明工作人员为执行象征性暴力和非人性化的监狱系统目标而忍受的心理应对工作。