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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…
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…
Thinking ahead, being proactive instead of reactive, can often save our sanity. Here are some ways to do that.
Be a force for positive change. Empower your colleagues. Point out progress, no matter how small. Tell them what value they contribute to the team and the institution. Read more…
The other day my friend Paul, a corrections professional, told me that he once was a tender-hearted, warm person. “Now,” he mused, “after 16 years in corrections, I feel shut down. If somebody really hassled me I might feel some anger. Otherwise I’m a flat line. I can’t feel much inside, either good or bad. In a way it’s easier not to be getting worked up over things, but I know something’s not right!” He added, “Linda keeps complaining that I’m too distant with her and the kids.”
“What do you think happened?” I asked.
Paul’s answer came after a long pause. “I think I just got too used to keeping myself under control in order to remain professional.” Read more…
Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) can be of great help to staff who struggle with substance abuse issues. In my counseling practice with Corrections Officers over the past nine years I have noted an additional area of need which crops us frequently with corrections personnel—that of posttraumatic stress. In fact, these two areas of substance abuse and psychological traumatization may well be interrelated. The “dual” (double) diagnosis literature indicates that oftentimes substances, such as alcohol, are the tool people abuse to “muffle” (self-medicate) their posttraumatic symptoms and make them more tolerable for a short while.1
Posttraumatic stress takes a heavy toll on body, soul, and spirit.1 In addition to substance abuse, untreated posttraumatic stress may contribute to high turnover, sick leave, and early disability retirement in corrections. And it may be at least partly responsible for the high suicide rates among Corrections Officers.2
I recently suggested that laughing helps us stay sane. Since theory without practice is useless, I decided to post this article submitted to Desert Waters by a CO wife. So read on, and chuckle, chortle and guffaw.
“He ate his shoes!” was what my husband mumbled over and over one evening during his first couple of months on the job in the prison system. What sort of job had he found himself in and what sort of people would eat their shoes? Thus began his life as a corrections officer, dealing with not only shoe-eaters, but inmates that would do just about anything. Read more…
“A clown is like an aspirin, only he works twice as fast.” Groucho Marx
“A cheerful heart is good medicine.” King Solomon (Proverbs 17:22)
Most adults laugh 0 to 50 times a day. Researchers recommend 100 to 400 laughs a day. (Four-year-olds’ level). Read more…
As in other branches of law enforcement, sexual involvement is not uncommon between corrections employees who are married or in otherwise committed relationships. These behaviors cause a multitude of complications in the workplace and can also wreak havoc in people’s personal lives.
Here are some thoughts as to why corrections staff may get entangled in such relationships, even after they have witnessed similar situations ending in shipwrecks. Read more…
One of the greatest sources of demoralization for corrections and detention staff is “losing” one of their own to inmates. What I am referring to is the crossing of professional boundaries by staff in ways that violate policy and break the law.
Why and how do these violations happen? And what can be done to help render staff immune to them?
A common boundary violation in corrections is staff befriending inmates. This “overfamiliarity” may or may not lead to sexual/romantic involvement, the introduction of contraband into facilities (tobacco and other drugs, weapons, etc.), or staff acting as messengers between inmates and people on the outside.
In discussions of professional boundaries, psychologists talk about the slippery slope, the boundary erosion between therapists and clients. This term refers to ethical or criminal violations which are initially small, but which may eventually progress to major infractions. Read more…
