Warden Glynn

Leo Glynn (played by Ernie Hudson) is a fictional character on the HBO drama Oz. He is the warden of the Oswald state correctional facility.

Glynn began working as a correctional officer (possibly Oz's first black CO) in the early 1960s and, true to that era, is a very old-fashioned and conservative official. As described in the journal of Augustus Hill, Glynn's philosophy of running a prison is based more on retribution than redemption and rehabilitation. As stated in the journal, the reasoning behind this is so Glynn can one day be promoted to the position of Commissioner of Prisons and perhaps even become the state's first African-American Governor. He runs the entire prison, answering mainly to Governor James Devlin, a right-wing politician with whom even Glynn has policy disagreements.

Throughout the series, Glynn is well-respected by the staff and, for the most part, treats the prisoners as justly as need be. Despite this, he has had moments which show another side of his personality. He can be petty and vindictive at times, notably refusing to move Andrew Schillinger due to his dislike of Vern Schillinger and making Alvarez miss a meeting with his family out of a dislike of Latinos. Furthermore, he is often prone to take sides against those he works with. He fired - and quickly rehired - Sister Pete for protesting an execution. He was unwilling to defend McManus and Em City from Devlin as well as siding with black inmates on some issues. Glynn can also act on his disdain for prisoners on occasion, such as letting Alvarez starve and nearly commit suicide after he blinded a guard.

As Glynn's philosophy in running a prison is retribution-based, he is very conservative on issues involving Law and Order, believing that the prisoners in Oz should serve hard time for hard crimes. As warden, he cares most about maintaining order in his prison and stopping the drug trade amongst other things. To prevent drugs from moving within Oz, Glynn is a fan of week-long lockdowns as a means of keeping the inmates from moving drugs within Oz. Knowing the demographics and power structure of Oz, Glynn also secretly assigns two black Narcotics Detectives from the Police Department on two different occasions to put a plug in the drug traffic. As a former CO, Glynn realizes that contraband or "tits" does get sneaked into Oz and won't go away completely, but he wants the staff to enforce the smuggling as much as possible.

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