Question

1. How do workers in a prison organization gain compliance to get someone to behave in accordance with an order or directive given by another person?2.  What methods do prison guards use to gain compliance from prisoners.  Are these methods ethical?  What methods would you change and/or institute to gain their compliance?
3.  What remunerative power does a prison guard have to obtain compliance from prisoners in exchange for material resources?4.  What normative power does a prison guard have to obtain compliance by manipulating symbolic rewards?5.  What means of coercive power is at the disposal of the prison guard to obtain compliance by the application of threat of physical forces?  Is this effective?  Is there a better method?

Answer 1

1. Workers in a prison organization gain compliance to get someone to behave in accordance with an order or directive given by another person by using the means that they (i.e. the workers) have. The workers use and leverage the means to gain an upper hand and hence get someone to behave in accordance with an order or directive given by another person.

2. Prison guards usually use coercive power i.e. the application of threat of physical forces to gain compliance from prisoners. No these methods are not ethical as use of physical force is more often than not unwarranted. The methods that I would suggest is the use of normative power in which prison guards will gain compliance from prisoners by focusing on social esteem and allocation of honors to the prisoners.

3. Remunerative power is power that is based on benefits like goods that are exchanged for compliance. Often prisoners are need of goods that are not provided to them in prison (like cigarettes for example or proper medical care). The prison guards use this power to gain compliance from prisoners.

4. Normative power is the power of symbolic rewards that are given to employees, and in this case to prisoners. Symbolic rewards being referred to here are rewards like allocation of honors and allocation of social esteem. Prison guards can provide symbolic rewards to prisoners in the form of treatment programs or recreation education on a priority basis.

5. The coercive power at the disposal of the prison guard to obtain compliance by the application of threat of physical forces is the power to keep them in line through rules that exist in a prison and that can be enforced by prison guards by having the ability to enforce the rules by subjecting the prisoners to physical punishment and threat of use of beating and trashing the prisoners in case of non compliance.