Newjack – Ted ConoverNewjack is Ted Conover's personal memoirs as a correctional officer in one of New York's famous maximum security prisons: Sing Sing. A correctional officer's job consists of long days of locking and unlocking cells, moving prisoners to and from various locations while prisoners beg, aggravate, and abuse them. After a brief stint at the academy and a short period of field training, Conover found himself working, often alone and always unarmed, in tunnels holding sixty or more inmates. He has heard of many stories that happen in prison. Stories include inmates beating other inmates and burning down their cell, an inmate who was beaten by correctional officers after hitting an officer in the head with a broomstick. Surprisingly, there are also some cases where voluntary sexual encounters occur between female staff and inmates. It is truly a welcoming work for “newjacks” and readers. On top of that, supervisors do not mentor or mentor new officials, and officials from one shift pass problems on to the next. Conover sees and realizes that prison workers are very flexible characters, neither good nor bad, but they must deal with stress and problems in a well-organized way. As Conover points out, this at Sing Sing runs counter to staff getting to know the prisoners. It is ridiculous to see that there are problems that prison administrators clearly could have solved but instead no longer care about the relationship between inmates and officers. In particular, incentives for better supervision and greater support for effective staff are clearly needed. Conover has deduced many times that when something bad happens there will always be another person pointing the finger at another or...... middle of paper... ...they want not only to be respected but also to be able to survive in the prison environment. There are many inmates in prison and no two inmates are the same. Inmates will disrespect officers by calling them names, giving them a hard time, but the opposite also happens. It's a disturbing image after learning that sometimes the officer is to blame and not just the wrongdoings of the inmates. There will be times when officers and inmates will be involved in a conspiracy crime and times when female staff will be involved in sexual acts with an inmate. Conover wrote this book to allow the public to see prison society from many different points of view and provide future officers with initial insight into becoming a correctional officer. Works Cited Conover, Ted. Newjack: Guard Sing Sing. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2000. 331. Print.