I want to be careful here. I worked in a prison. Therapist. The corrections folks (the folks that moved them around the faciility, took them to the yard etc) were not trained folk. Most of them , in fact were high school drop outs, that realized the pay was better than McDonalds or Wal Mart.
We often had to caution them about their behaviors when interacting with the guys. They are not a trained group of folks.Very often the guys were far "brighter" than the COs. They are tought the rules, how to line them up, how to do take downs, how the locking and unlocking procedures work.
They are not trained folks, and yes, it was very easy for the guys to manipulate them. They obviously had different relationships with the CO's than they did us and administration types. THey spend much more time with them, and the CO's liked some of the guys, while disdaining some of the other guys.
THese are not folks trained in things like boundaries- we had to correct correction officers often in terms of the way they would interact with the guys. Basically it is a job that pays better than McDonalds and basically consists of moving folks around in a line, locking and unlocking some doors, escorting them to group, the yard, or to eat.