You Already Know: Professionalizing Corrections through Instructional Film, 1976–1981

ABSTRACT:Beginning in the mid-1970s Charles Cahill and Associates produced the Correctional Officer series, a set of instructional films aimed specifically at corrections officers that is the first cohesive film series archived in the Federal Bureau of Prisons' holdings at the National Archives and Records Administration. This article outlines how the Correctional Officer series grappled with the task of professionalizing corrections in a nonstandardized environment and the series' own position as a bad object. I provide a narrative analysis of three examples from the Correctional Officer series, exploring how corrections is justified to the individuals actually doing it. This article pays particular attention to moments when the series drops its approach to the officer as a modern, "loose" subject, making visible unspoken anxieties centered around sexuality, race, and professional loyalty.