Q: Do prisoners and guards ever form friendships? If they do, do the guards do them favors?
A: Not very often. Forming friendships is dangerous ground, and it's strongly discouraged by the inmates and the officers.
I've seen the consequences of a few friendships. At first it seems innocent enough. The officer and the inmate will find some sort of common ground that leads to a level of mutual respect. Then the officer might start giving the inmate favorable treatment, like assigning him preferred jobs or signing off on requests for certain educational or work programs.
In return the inmate will start going the extra mile to help the officer. He might tip him off to inmate activities or get other inmates to do what the officer wants. This in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. Most officers find informants that help them stay clued-in about the goings-on inside the prison, but at that point the officer can also become vulnerable to manipulation and bad decisions.
Common mistakes are when the officer develops real feelings for the inmate or gets greedy and decides to go into business with him. The inmate will often take advantage of that situation and get the officer to start doing him favors. He might want the officer to bring in contraband like drugs or weapons, and if the officer does it the inmate has him. The inmate will start making more requests and will often start requesting things that are more dangerous or illegal. Even if the officer decides that he doesn't want to bring stuff in anymore the inmate will threaten to tell on him. Thus begins a downward spiral of corruption that usually ends with an officer out of a job or possibly looking at his own prison sentence. It's a dirty game and it seems that the inmates usually win it.
In my own experience, I'll kid around with some inmates and shoot the breeze but there is never a real bond of friendship. Basically, it's just a mutual understanding that time goes by easier if everyone is cool with each other.
