The perspective of correction officers on crime and criminal, their relations with 'the power' and 'the authority'

The penal system in Turkey has always created it's own agenda and stayed in concern both social sciences and policy. Although social work has members of profession who work in relevant institutions, it is still a field which has relatively few researches about criminality. With this thesis, giving a new point of view to the field –which we think there is a lack of data in literature- is aimed by working with correction officers who are main characters in the field of criminality but not studied enough. In this study a small sample case of an approach to the crime and the criminal penal system in Turkey by the views of the correction officers, has been studied. Such a sample case will help to identify the structural problems and needs of the policies in criminality field. Another goal of the thesis is to examine the effect of 'the power' they have, 'the authority' they used and their relations with 'the authority' they depend on in the hierarchical system, to their opinions about the crime and the criminal. Depth interviews with 12 correction officers were conducted within the scope of research in three big cities in Turkey (Ankara, İstanbul Bursa). Opinions of the interviewers about perceptions of their profession, their professional lives, their communications with inmates, penal system features such as conditions of inmates/probation/working of inmates have been taken. At the end of the research we have reached this findings: Most of the interviewers have been working in their jobs compulsorily, they find their trainings insufficient, they try to built balance of authority in communication with inmates, they don't believe in the 'rehabilitative' role of the prisons, they attribute some structural problems in penal system. Prisons create a negative setting for both workers and inmates and improved reforms can not be a solution to the structural problems. While considering the penal system traditional ideas should be abandoned and alternatives should be discoursed.