Prison officer
profession
A prison officer (PO) or corrections officer (CO), also known as a correctional law enforcement officer, is a uniformed law enforcement official responsible for the custody, supervision, safety, and regulation of prisoners.
Terms for the role
Historically, terms such as "jailer" (also spelled "gaoler"), "guard" and "warder" have all been used. Slang terms have included "turnkey", "screw", "tier boot", "hura", "CO", "Cop", "boss", "keeper", and others pending the region or area.
The term "prison officer" is used for the role in the UK and Ireland. It is the official English title in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Poland.
The term "corrections officer" or "correction officer" is used in the U.S. and New Zealand. "Detention officer" is used in the U.S., as is the term "penal officer". The term "correctional police officer" or "CPO" is used in New Jersey. Due to the law enforcement status and authority of New Jersey's officers, New Jersey's officers employed by the Department of Corrections are classified as "police officers".
Brazil has a similar system to New Jersey, but the officers are known as "state penal police agent" or "federal penal police agent".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Prison officer” is profession. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Prison, officer and profession, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “profession” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q311396. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Prison officer”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Prison officer primary sources, Prison officer archive and Prison research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Prison officer”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Prison officer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.