In Newjack by Ted Conover, what do you think Conover learned about himself and about his relationships with staff and inmates?

Conover worked as a guard at Sing Sing to understand the reality of the inmates' and correction officers' lives. In writing his book, he was both a journalist and an ethnographer, as he worked alongside the people he wrote about. In the end, he understands that the reality of the lives of the correctional officers (or COs, as they are known) and the inmates is different than the way the public has understood it. He also has a great deal of empathy for both the COs and inmates and understands that both the COs and inmates are scared and human, just as he was during his time working at Sing Sing.
He writes in the Afterword to his book that he has only just begun to understand "the depth of the stigma they [the officers] felt, the pain of society's disregard" (page 315). He goes on to write that "the antidote" to the stigma is "recognition and an appreciation of the job's unique difficulties" (page 315). In other words, the COs are misunderstood by society, and only by living in a CO's shoes does he understand the reality of how difficult their work is. He also comes to understand the lives of the inmates in their blocks, which he describes as "massive human warehouses" (page 6). He comes to understand that prisons have to be reformed to prevent recidivism, and he comes to know that many of the prisoners are scared or mentally ill human beings. In short, he comes to understand that he has to experience someone's reality to truly understand it.