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
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
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
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
For an institution to run efficiently and effectively, the three ”C’s” of effective operations need to be in place. These fundamentals are: Chain of command, Communication, Clique control. An effective leader will best drive these lessons home and make them part of the institution’s values.
All three of these foundation elements are challenged by the specter of bullying in the workplace. Bullies of all varieties thrive on control. They rule through coercion. Their presence often makes achieving the mission statement of any agency more difficult. And sometimes when we endeavor to control bullying (or take out the trash) we might consider some unorhtodox methods.
Read more…
joebouchard Assessing the organization, Self Scrutiny, Staff relations
In corrections, there is often a complex posturing that is based on image and intimidation. It is a matter of survival. Such is the world that we work in. Therefore, it should come to no surprise that staff and offenders sometimes perceive the other as bullying.
To most, intimidation is the tool of the bully. But is it always bullying? Is aggression sometimes really assertion? Is there a difference between meeting issuing direction and coercion? Is it fair to use bully tactics on a bully? Read more…
joebouchard Assessing the organization, Self Scrutiny, Staff relations
Only one of them saw the way out of danger and tried to escape. She scaled the wall of the metal cylinder before the hot liquid won the battle. Yet, though she knew the way to safety, she could not go there. Others pulled her down. Perhaps they were panicking and did not know better. Maybe it was a sort of sick realization that they were all going to die. No matter how hard she tried, the crab could not leave the boiling pot. The other crabs pulled her down to an eventual collective death.
A colleague of mine once remarked that one does not have to place a lid on a boiling pot of live crabs. He told me that the crabs will pull each other down. While I do not know if this is true in all cases, I can acknowledge that it is an interesting concept. Read more…
joebouchard Self Scrutiny, Staff relations
(From Richard Lumb, Ph.D.)
My comments are a follow-up to Joe and Ron’s November 13, 2009 posting on the use and application of resilience tools to help moderate the impact of stress and the encounter with adversity or trauma that ranges from minor discomfort to mind and body wrenching crisis. Daily pressure is inevitable and we often ride waves of discomfort with accompanying emotions usually returning to a place of balance where coping takes place naturally. Read more…
joebouchard Guest Author, Self Scrutiny, Staff relations
There is a very dangerous road in all corrections settings. This thoroughfare is known as Division Street.
It is not difficult to see that any prison or jail is very much like a city. The comparisons of services in either setting simply jump out at anyone who ponders this. There is a restaurant, a library, a police force, a medical center and housing units in each.
Let us delve a bit deeper. Some of the same street names surely exist in your city as do in a corrections setting. However, the street names in your city are actual while those in jails or prison don’t really exist. They are really models of behavior that we label in order to understand in a fuller manner. Read more…
joebouchard Self Scrutiny, Staff relations
