This is a letter sent our way a few months ago. A trusted colleague who also works at California Dept. of C orrections & Rehabilitation said this about it: This is an absolute factual account of prison life. The author has done an excellent job of describing the conditions inside of California’s prisons, while pointing out the inequities between felons and working people, with the felons receiving all the benefits, while we work responsibly only to be burdened by paycuts. Excellently done.
As a California Dept. of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) employee, I have had my fill with the statements being made in the media about how the overpaid state employees (prison guards) are draining the state’s budget, and how the poor inmates (convicted FELONS) are dropping like flies due to substandard medical care and brutal living conditions. Allow me to cast some light onto these shadowy areas with my ten plus years of insight behind the walls.
Read more…
ctudor Corrections Fatigue corrections officers, morale
Since we’re often asked questions about DWCO, I’d like to tell you a little about how and why we ended up doing what we are doing in corrections.
DWCO’s mission is to help increase the occupational, personal and family well-being of corrections personnel. Our vision is corrections staff who are professionals, who are healthy physically, psychologically and spiritually, and who live well way past retirement.
DWCO was founded by my husband Ted Tudor and me as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation in 2003. Neither of us wanted to get involved in corrections. He was retired. I had moved to Fremont County (with its 12 prisons and jail) to semi-retire and play “farmer” while maintaining a psychotherapy practice. As a result of counseling and talking with corrections personnel in our county, I became aware of the need for more specialized services targeting corrections staff wellness. Read more…
ctudor Uncategorized
1. Always be respectful.
2. Meet with your team weekly and walk around your area daily to stay in touch with your staff and to be accessible to them.
3. LISTEN, truly listen, to your staff. Instead of presenting your side right away, ask questions about their perspective.
4. Praise your staff both privately and publicly and spell out the specific behaviors for which you commend them. Share the glory. Read more…
ctudor Leadership mentoring, supervising
It hurts my soul that another exemplary correctional worker killed himself yesterday. His suicide blind-sighted & knocked the wind out of all who knew him. It hurts that he was all alone in his pain to the end, tormented by what proved for him to be unbearable heartache & hopelessness, yet he didn’t feel safe to confide in any of his corrections “comrades in arms.”
What do you think drove him to pretend everything was manageable & that he was OK? Read more…
ctudor Staff Suicide corrections officers, self-care, stress, suicide
