Since the Second World War the emphasis in corrections policy has shifted from authoritarian prisons and punitive incarceration to rehabilitation, democratization of prison processes, and treatment for offenders' social and psychological deprivation. The increase of social activities within prisons has necessitated new requirements for prison personnel, e.g., greater responsibility, greater assertiveness, improved insight into social processes, and better oral and written communication skills. Despite general agreement about the need for intensive training in dealing with human problems on a day-to-day basis, the educational level of guards is low. The lack of adequate training makes guards more dependent on the organization and contributes to the low status of the custodial job. Corrections reform depends on redefinition of the guards' position within the corrections institution, as the status of guards is out of keeping with their actual power over prisoners. Guards must also increasingly rely on normative and relational power rather than force and material power to achieve their goals. Improvement in the function of prison personnel can be achieved through less strict adherence to tradition, reduction of the characteristics of prisons as total and institutions better understanding of guards' role to lessen incongruence. Notes are supplied.