Recent cases demonstrate that misconduct by correctional staff is increasingly framed as a serious abuse of custodial authority. In several high-profile incidents, jail and prison officers were arrested and criminally charged after engaging in prohibited relationships with incarcerated individuals.
For instance, a Fresno, California County jail officer was charged after investigators determined that she engaged in a sexual relationship with a male inmate under her supervision (ABC30, 2021). A similar pattern emerged in another case reported by NBC News, in which a correctional officer was charged after allegations surfaced that he engaged in sexual activity with an incarcerated woman under his supervision (NBC News, 2022).
Power in corrections isn’t always enforced through authority, but it’s often negotiated through influence. Every day, correctional officers face subtle psychological tests that challenge professionalism, ethics and awareness. Inmates observe, adapt and study the personalities of those who supervise them in order to compromise them. The inmate’s influence is deliberate, built on emotional intelligence, timing and psychological precision.
Inmate manipulation unfolds through tools, triggers and tactics that erode professional distance. Recognizing the cues of psychological influence is more than theory. It is a professional survival skill that preserves integrity, consistency and control behind the walls, which can preclude you from getting compromised.
Tools of manipulation
Manipulation begins with psychological tools that create access and trust. These include flattery, sympathy, compliments, small favors and shared frustrations about policies. Each tool seems harmless at first, but combined, they build emotional leverage.
In “Games Criminals Play,” Allen and Bosta (1981) identified the three-step process for manipulation: selection–setup–play sequence.
Inmates first select a potential target, often someone who appears empathetic, overworked or fair. The setup follows through light conversation or rapport-building. The play begins when a small rule is bent, an act that creates mutual trust or secrecy, which ultimately is the demise of the correctional officer.
The danger is that the selection-setup-play steps appeal to an officer’s best instincts. The desire to help, calm or de-escalate feels humane, but every small exception, an extra call allowed, incense burning in a cell or roll of tape , builds the manipulator’s playbook. As Allen and Bosta cautioned, it is often the good officers, the ones who care too much, who face the greatest risk.
Robert Worley’s memoir (2016) revealed that officers who lead with compassion often become the most targeted because empathy opens the emotional door. Both research and field experience converge on one truth. Ethical erosion begins not with misconduct, but with conversation.
Triggers that make humans vulnerable
Manipulation moves forward through emotional and psychological triggers that makes influence possible. Manipulation rarely appears blatant. It often operates through subtle behaviors that shape emotions over time. These triggers are deeply human, including empathy, pride, fairness, loneliness, or the need for respect.
Correctional professionals, like everyone else, operate from moral frameworks shaped by upbringing and culture (Caldero, Dailey, & Withrow, 2019). Under stress, those values can become vulnerabilities.
In neurolinguistic programming, anchoring links a gesture, sound or phrase with a specific emotional state, creating an automatic reaction when repeated (Bandler, Roberti, & Fitzpatrick, 2013; Brooks, 1989). A smile, tone or gesture paired with a positive feeling can later retrigger trust or familiarity. Once formed, the stimulus alone can retrigger the feeling. In corrections, those triggers often become behavioral shortcuts.
Emotional anchors bypass awareness
Responses that bypass awareness are anchors that can be external or internal. We all carry emotional inner anchors built through repetition, like the smell of cut grass recalling childhood summers or a song evoking nostalgia.
Inside prisons, officers also develop anchors, like the relief of resolving a conflict or pride when thanked for fairness. When an inmate reproduces the triggering tone or gesture, the officer’s body responds automatically. Recognizing these anchors and the associated triggers helps staff distinguish genuine empathy from conditioned reactions.
When I was a correctional officer, I experienced anchors firsthand. One inmate regularly came to my office with small, harmless requests. One day, he asked for extra toilet paper. I handed it to him. He smiled, said “thank you,” and tapped three times on my desk before leaving. The next day, he returned and this time asked for trash bags. Same smile, same thanks, same three light taps, this time in the door frame, as he left my office.
Within a short time, that pattern became familiar. Whenever I heard the triple tap noise, I automatically thought of him as “the respectful one.” Only later did I realize that this repeated cue had quietly anchored a sense of trust in him and others that performed the triple tap noise.
Another inmate would often stop by my office to chat about neutral topics, such as sports, music, weather and news. During these exchanges, he smiled and rubbed his chin while listening attentively. After several conversations, that gesture became a signal of calm, accepting, open minded, compassion and sincerity. Weeks later, when he asked for a small favor, he rubbed his chin again and without realizing it, I felt more at ease. That moment revealed how emotional conditioning bypasses awareness.
Worley (2016) documented similar findings in what he termed “the touch game.” Through repetition and observation, inmates learn which gestures and tones elicit trust. These are the clicks that activate an officer’s whirr, the automatic, compliant response described by Cialdini (2009).
Cialdini’s “click and whirr” principle
Cialdini (2009) explained that people often rely on automatic compliance mechanisms, specifically the “click” of a stimulus followed by the “whirr” of a reflexive response. These shortcuts evolved to simplify decisions, but can be exploited in structured environments like prisons.
An inmate saying, “You’re always fair with me,” can activate an officer’s internal identity as fair-minded, prompting leniency or exception-making. This reflects Cialdini’s consistency principle that the drive to act in ways consistent with our self-image.
Similarly, reciprocity, “You helped me before”, liking, such as shared humor or a sports team, and authority, an appeal to expertise, operate below conscious thought. The danger for a CO lies in automatic kindness. When empathy becomes a reflex rather than reasoned judgment.
Mirroring, pacing and rapport
Inmates often use rapport, pacing and mirroring techniques drawn from neurolinguistic programming, to accelerate trust. Rapport involves matching another person’s communication style to create connection (Brooks, 1989). Genuine rapport builds trust; counterfeit rapport builds control.
Pacing means subtly aligning tone, rhythm or body posture to establish comfort, while mirroring copies gestures or language patterns to signal similarity (Brooks, 1989). Together, these techniques foster familiarity and lower an officer’s guard. When combined with anchoring or reciprocity, they form a powerful psychological loop of comfort and compliance.
Brooks also noted that effective rapport requires congruence, which is alignment between voice, tone and body language. Manipulators use congruence strategically, aligning their behavior with an officer’s communication style to build unconscious trust. Some even adapt to an officer’s sensory language: visual (“see what I mean”), auditory (“hear me out”), or kinesthetic (“I feel you”), to deepen the connection.
When officers feel understood, they may overlook testing behaviors. The danger is not rapport itself, but the imitation of rapport when it doesn’t or shouldn’t exist. When comfort replaces caution, manipulation replaces respect.
Having neutral, rehearsed responses helps protect those boundaries. My own go-to phrase for personal questions was, “What, are you writing a book? Skip my chapter.” That kind of humor resets professionalism without conflict. The game is psychological, not physical. Awareness is protection, discipline is control.
Tactics that turn influence into control
Once inmates identify an officer’s triggers, they apply deliberate tactics grounded in persuasion psychology, aligning with Cialdini’s terms:
- Reciprocity: Creating obligation through small favors.
- Commitment and consistency: Turning one exception into a pattern.
- Liking: Fostering artificial fake friendship.
- Social proof: Suggesting “other officers” already agreed.
- Authority: Appealing to fairness or expertise.
- Scarcity: Creating urgency (“This is my last chance”).
These tactics thrive in silence. When manipulation is not discussed, it normalizes. A single compassionate decision can evolve into dependency and, eventually, control. Worley (2016) called this the economics of crossing over when validation from inmates replaces recognition from peers. Compassion becomes currency, and rapport replaces respect.
Supervisory culture is key. Facilities that promote open discussion about manipulation, ethics and stress build resilience. Awareness is not weakness, it’s armor.
Ethical resilience in a value-driven profession
Remaining ethical in manipulation-rich environments requires discipline, not detachment. Ethical resilience grows through six habits:
- Reflective decision-making: Before acting, ask, “Is this consistent with policy and procedure, or am I doing what feels right in the moment?”
- Peer accountability: Encourage a culture where staff can respectfully call out boundary drift or favoritism. Say no if you are unsure. A no now can become a yes later with supervision.
- Emotional awareness: Fatigue, stress and isolation weaken judgment. Use supervision, peer support and debriefing to stay grounded.
- Transparency: Make every decision one you’d be comfortable explaining to your supervisor, peers or family.
- Ethical reinforcement: View policy and post orders not as red tape, but as guardrails that protect fairness and integrity.
- Cognizance: Remember that inmates read books on influence, manipulation, body language, rapport, seduction, persuasion and neurolinguistic programming techniques. Prisons have banned them, yet awareness is the best defense.
Worley (2016) encouraged reflection and storytelling as preventive tools. Sharing manipulation experiences helps reduce stigma and promotes a culture of vigilance. Annual training provides an appropriate forum for staff to reflect on and share manipulation experiences, reinforcing learning, reducing stigma and enhancing institutional awareness.
Policy doesn’t restrict compassion, it protects it. Professional structure ensures empathy is expressed through fairness, not favors.
Awareness defines control
Each day, someone will try to press your “click” button through friendliness, frustration or flattery. Your task is to stop the “whirr” before it starts. Awareness is your pause button. Discipline is your stop key. Influence behind bars is inevitable. Surrendering control to it is not.
Training discussion points
- What signs can help you recognize when a casual inmate interaction is shifting toward manipulation?
- How can awareness of body language, pacing, anchoring or mirroring help you identify when rapport is being used as a tool of control?
- How can small exceptions, like bending a minor rule, lead to larger ethical compromises over time?
References
ABC30. (2021). Fresno County officer accused of having sex with inmate. https://abc30.com/post/fresno-county-officer-jail-sex-with-inmate/10844954/
Allen, B., & Bosta, D. (1981). Games criminals play: How you can profit by knowing them. Rae John Publishers.
Bandler, R., Roberti, A., & Fitzpatrick, O. (2013). The ultimate introduction to NLP: How to build a successful life. HarperCollins.
Brooks, M. (1989). Instant rapport. Warner Books.
Caldero, M. A., Dailey, J. D., & Withrow, B. L. (2019). Police ethics: The corruption of noble cause (4th ed.). Routledge.
Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: The psychology of persuasion (Rev. ed.). HarperCollins. NBC News. (2022). Correctional officer charged after alleged sexual relationship with inmate. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna28133
Worley, R. M. (2016). Memoirs of a guard-researcher: Deconstructing the games inmates play behind the prison walls. Deviant Behavior, 37(11), 1215–1226.