Corrections staff have a vocationally acquired inclination to think about security issue around the clock. This behavior does not automatically end when we leave the institution for the day. It is simply always on our minds.
I don’t know if this happens to everyone, but it seems to always happen to me. Whenever I travel, I can usually count on news of trouble in the air or in an airport. For example, while in the Milwaukee airport on the way back from the Winter ACA conference, I saw the story of Sully’s heroic landing on the Hudson River. And to end 2009, the attempted destruction of a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit occurred. I saw that on the television just before I was en route to the Orlando airport. Read more…
joebouchard Self Scrutiny, Training
Our professor looked into the full classroom and assessed her students. She said without a hint of merriment on her person: “Always remember this: Six equals sex”.
Puzzled, many of us snickered. More of us did not comprehend. She went on to explain: “Your spell check on your computer is a wonderful thing. However, it does not check for content or logic. If you mean to type ‘six’ but type ‘sex’, the computer will not see ‘sex’ as out of place or misspelled.”
I thought of this and the horrible consequences of that particular example. Let’s imagine that I am writing a proposal. I may intend to solve the problem with six ideas. However, what would the reader think if I write, “This challenge can be met with these sex ideas.” By nature, I am a problem solving writer, not some libidinous scribbler. It pays to proofread. Read more…
joebouchard Training
Policy is the true roadmap to corrections operations. It is the written manner by which we do everything from health care call outs to offender meal preparation. Without policies and operating procedures, we wallow in the mire of ambiguity and uneven treatment.
Staff routinely encounter at least one offender who refuses to acknowledge that policy applies universally. In other words, some prisoners steadfastly disobey the rules as a sort of self proclaimed right. How many times have you heard, “That does not apply to me!”?
Read more…
joebouchard Assessing the organization, Self Scrutiny, What the...?!?
You heard it prior to September 9, 1999 when computers were supposed to crash because the programs (allegedly) could not process the four-digit year 2000…
The Y2K scare was shouted everywhere just a few months after that…
More recently, the end is interpreted to fall on December 21, 2012…
There are even two solid dates that a large asteroid will impact the earth…
The end is near. That is what everyone says. There are so many would-be Nostradamus students in the wings telling you to prepare for the end.
I suggest that this phenomenon is common. But we have another end in sight. It is the end of a year. Read more…
joebouchard Self Scrutiny, Staff relations
Dear Reader:
January 2010 is the ten year mark for me in writing on various corrections topics. In recognition of this, I am now going to thank many who have helped me along the way.
Thanks to Linda Allen for helping me to understand how to walk around a problem and examine it.
Linda Dunbar took a chance on me and helped me learn how to edit a professional journal.
Appreciation goes to Jim Montalto for fostering my creative writing identity and showing that a sense of humor can be incorporated into writing.
I owe Laura Noonen much gratitude for giving me the opportunity to open the aperture even more with “Foundations”.
Angela Childers deserves recognition for showing me how to reduce unnecessary parts of my writing.
And certainly, for the readers I am truly grateful. Comments and support over the years have motivated me. It has been an interesting and fulfilling ten years. I can’t wait to see what the next decade will bring. Thanks to all, those named and the many unnamed for all of the support and encouragement.
joebouchard Dear Reader
In continuing our thoughts on the Security Classification Committee (SCC) we need to look at what types of segregation there are and how a prisoner gets into them.
“Throw him in the hole until we decide what to do with him” was the common phrase one use to hear from the Captain. How many times have there been incidents in the past where a prisoner gets placed in the hole and then is forgotten because the officer goes on vacation without writing the reports. The holidays come and no one in administration is around to decide what to do with the prisoner. Read more…
joebouchard Guest Author
Belligerence is rather easy to spot. It can come in the form of aggressive driving patterns, cutting in front of others in a line, a dirty look, or a terrorist act against our largest city. Clearly, aggression comes in many degrees.
However, some instances of hostility are better planned and better timed than others. And inside corrections facilities, we have many opportunities to witness the nuances.
Time aggression is the act of executing a precisely planned hostile incident. Read more…
joebouchard Self Scrutiny, Training
A big part of how order and safety are maintained in our facilities is through staff’s ability to deliver clear and concise instructions. Do we always understand this? Are we sometimes derailed by ambiguous statements? Are we thwarted by the nebulous expectations of others? Read more…
joebouchard Training
During the last six months presenting Collaborative Case Management I have encountered a wonderful and diverse group of people that work in, for or outside the MDOC. The general reoccurring theme was their frustration with the lack of common sense in the department. Yet they diligently report to work and do their jobs 110% everyday. Read more…
joebouchard Guest Author
This article is a collaboration between Joe Bouchard & Caterina Spinaris Tudor
Veteran staff have many helpful, even life-saving tips to share with other staff and newbies. They have earned their wisdom from experience over the years, usually the hard way.
Here is a list of attitudes and actions of seasoned corrections staff which help them remain safe on the job and successful in their careers. Read more…
joebouchard Guest Author, Self Scrutiny
