The five Perils
of Corrections
Many people have
no idea what a correctional officer endures during their career inside the
walls of a penitentiary or large jail. They don’t realize that how filthy the
work environment is as well as the fact you can be stabbed, infected by bio
hazard liquids, abused and assaulted and sometimes shot at. Needless to say
corrections is not a first choice career for those interested in law enforcement
and seeking work with a criminal justice degree. I would be lying to say that
it is a most glorious job to have compared to a forensic detective or even the
average daily street patrol cop on the street.
Corrections is
basically the end of the road career choices in the criminal justice system. That’s
not to demean the position but to illustrate how it is also the most forgotten
element of the criminal justice system. It is a mixture of boredom and pure
adrenalin rushes entwined in a terror filled and often a complacency world. Having
the power over life and death is often interrupted by a life threatening
situation that requires first responders to act quickly and effectively to
preserve life of themselves or others. It is a most violent world to work and
live in if you are the incarcerated felon. To admit that there are times were
you are scared is an understatement. These officers live with fear on duty and
off duty but none compare those moments when encountered by the reality of
prison work and its perils. It is one of the worst feelings an officer will
ever experience and live with their rest of their lives.
The first peril is dealing with the fact that correctional
officers must endure their time inside the penitentiary around a volatile
population of violent and nonviolent offenders. It stands to reason that the
focus of workplace dangers focuses on the violent sociopaths that prey among
the weak as well as the strong. Some are more brazen than others and will rock
your world if you drop your awareness even a little bit and give them an
opportunity to harm you. Working with felons with no compassion and histories
of being cop killers, rapists, child molesters and other violent behaviors it
must stand to reason that your own compassion for their lives is often
non-existent as they await a moment or opportunity to ambush you or your
coworkers.
Aside from the
fact that the public’s perception of these felons is often skewed or slanted there
are many other issues not discussed in the public’ ear shot or eyes. For no
other reasons that common sense and logic, it is basically an out of sight out
of mind environment.
For the
correctional officer the peril of harm or being killed relies on their skills
to recognize such dangers. They must be aware at all times that at any moment
they may encounter a violent predator and not hesitate to use the necessary force
to stop them in their tracks. Unlike a policeman or state trooper, they are not
armed and must rely on their self-defense skills, their use of Chemical Mace
and the hurried responders of fellow officers rushing to the scene to assist in
the takedown or restraint of an already convicted violent offender. There is no
room or time for second guessing and heavily criticized by the media and
nonelected politicians inside their own bureaucracy, they must face armchair
quarterbacking every time they use force to protect themselves. Being a
guardian of justice inside the penitentiary means to sacrifice their own
feeling and their own lives to protect others.
The second peril of working inside the penitentiary or
large jail is to cope with ever tightening budget cuts and staffing shortages. These
topics are often on top of the list of officers that work in such an environment
where the multitude of problems encountered are not just violent killers but
overcoming the higher risks imposed by reduced manpower or ineffective training
that is curtailed by funding. In a world where the population of incarcerated
felons exceed millions or more there are severe shortages in budget with more
cuts coming. It does not enhance the work environment one least bit and creates
more dangers than necessary for the job. Realizing the abandonment by society’s
lawmakers and budget creators, these officers don’t have time to wallow in self-pity
or other negative emotional feelings as they must take care of business
regardless of what they are given to work with.
The third peril related to correctional officers is the
perception of those outside the penitentiaries that these officers are given
the necessary tools and training to do the job. Without a doubt, the most
common phrase a rookie officer will hear from the veteran is “forget what you
learned at the academy” and do what I do and you will stay alive. When the need
for training is sabotaged or compromised by cultural indifference to the
process and practice of doing the job, there is much room for error and
mistakes that are often harmful or lethal for the officer. Training is a
critical element of survival and is crucial in the success of being a better
than average correctional officer. Due to budget cuts, training has become
redundant and boring for the officers giving them no new technology or
inventive skills to improve on. There is no intensity in training and that
makes it boring and for reasons as “that’s the way it has always been” there
are no signs of improving these lesson plans that can help the officers do
their jobs. Agencies have no incentives to find better training techniques as
that would incur additional costs that are not approved in their budgets.
The fourth peril is a silent killer. This peril revolves
around the stress and anxiety of the job and may lead to suicides. The mere workplace
culture, customs and traditions induce the fear and paranoia that is required
to stay alive. Thoughts of hostage taking, serious beatings or being stabbed
are real as well as knowing that any moment you may be assaulted with HIV
loaded feces or other urine of body fluids hurled at your presence by felons
with no regard for life or welfare of others. Correctional officers don’t talk
about PTSD as it is a dirty word and shows weakness. Officers don’t talk about
wimpy subjects and not realize that this silence in fact perpetuates the
problem even further. Suicide of another officer is often ignored and murder by
a convicted felon is considered a legitimate reason for the stress and anxiety
that fills their world. Working around considerable risky people is a risky
business not taken for granted by anyone inside prison.
The fifth and final peril is being targeted or working for
administrations that are hiring poor managers and out of touch management
styles. These officers must endure the most common peril shared in law enforcement
where the administration does not back up the officers in their efforts to
perform their duties under must distress and difficulties. Administrators are
often in a mode that ignore the realities of the job and therefore refuse to
hear or see what is considered to be a front line problem for them. They refuse
to discuss it, listen to the issues and pretend that it is the other way around
and it’s the officer’s fault or problem rather than the administration’s
responsibility.
This type of
ignorance by supervisors and managers leads to continued stress and will never
disappear or go away in the workplace. It appears to be an unnecessary evil to
endure. When the administration refuses to hear or see the problems then it
becomes more dangerous for all that work there. The truth is however that the
prison world is not dangerous place because of evil but rather it is dangerous because
often recorded and acknowledged in the history books, it is a dangerous place
because the narcissist and arrogant people in charge won’t admit it was their
fault and watch and let it happen again and again over and over.
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