Correctional Staff Attitudes Essays

Correctional Staff Attitudes Essays Correctional Staff Attitudes Essay Correctional Staff Attitudes Essay Correctional Staff Attitudes and its Effects on the Entire Facility Teresa McCroskey CJ503 – 01NA Organizational Behavior Unit 3 April 13, 2010 Instructor Colleen McCue Correctional Staff Attitudes and its Effects on the Entire Facility The correctional staffs work environment is largely a part of the issue of why it is hard to keep efficient staff. The correctional supervisor must be able to find solutions for staff to be able to handle the hostile work environment, job dangers, shift work, and dealing with the family stressors. This can cause many issues such as lack of sleep, issues with child care, along with dangerous inmates the correctional officers deal with, medical issues, among a few. This causes many of the officers to have absenteeism from work, and develop negative attitudes, work habits, and feelings towards the people he/she is supervised by or receive promotions before them. Correctional workers work in a unique work environment. (Dial Johnson, 2008) Correctional officers can develop medical issues that can cause them time off work called stressors. These stressors can come from lack of sleep which can disrupt much of an officers day. Some of the symptoms are what is called Shift lag. â€Å"Shift lag is impaired performance. Lack of sleep can cause gastrointestinal issues, depression and apathy, sleepiness or falling asleep at work, and sleep interference during the daytime. Medical issues that can come from the stressors of lack of sleep can cause much disruption in an officers work day. Some of the symptoms are: shift lag, impaired performance, gastrointestinal dysfunction, depression and apathy, sleepiness/sleeping at work, and sleep disruption during the daytime sleep. Women face the issue of cardiovascular and obstetric problems more so then men. Women face having low birth rate babies, preterm babies, and spontaneous abortions. Where men may have issues with cardiovascular issues and sleep disorders. † (Dial Johnson, 2008) There was a study done and in this study there was nine correctional norms found. The nine norms or beliefs found among the officers and supervisors. They were: â€Å"That the officer is to protect his partner, bring no drugs to his partner, no turning on another officer, never make an officer look bad in front of an inmate, lways help an officer against an inmate, do not be a goody-two-shoes, all officers stand together against all outside groups, show positive concern for all fellow officers†. (Dial Johnson, 2008) The senior officers train the trainees to help them learn the ropes of the inmates. The trainees are taught that the inmates are the enemy and can not be trusted. The first thing one is to suspect is that one can anticipate trouble at any time. More often than not there are signs of issues brewing. Look for signs of noise change whether quieter or louder. If the offender refuses to be searched then that could be a sign as well. These are all signs that a senior officer will teach a trainee to help him/her fit in the subculture of the prison. Different officers use different techniques to gain control of the inmates. Some use force some use psychological pressure. No two officers use the complete same technique or are two offenders the same. Training of racial and mental health inmates are trained by the senior officers to the new officers because it is a different subculture to face. Peer pressure is one of the issues that cause prison guards to be vulnerable or negative. The dependency on support and response of other staff , new staff orientation includes a â€Å"code of silence,† this gives a message that administration does not care about safety and will not allocate what is needed to do the job â€Å"the right way,† and which means the job gets done â€Å"our way. † (Cocoran, 2005) Without the extra training it can be it can be extra stress from the more difficult inmates and there would be more employee turnover, sick leave, and possible peer pressure from the officers trying to fit in and not being able to do so. Experienced practioners, program specialists, and evaluators conducted interviews and did observations on all shifts. This team went into the cultures formal and informal. The stresses of the job, the patterns of the job, the patterns and unique values held by the members of the shift members of the job and attitudes and behaviors. â€Å"This can cause possible misalignment of management and line staff. It can affect the core value of the policy and practices. Others understand the issues like another police officer or correctional officer. (Cocoran, 2005) If all are available to one another it is easier for officers to deal with the job stressors. Support should always come from another officer or officer support program. In the testing of the Westville Correction Center, which is a medium security prison, 100 officers volunteered to take and be involved in the survey and experiment. This was a year long experiment, which in turn lessened assaults, grievances, the number of escapes , and the amount of overtime. According to the guards, and inmates the program is to help the administration, supervisors change the culture to help prison guards and inmates with the values, norms to be positive and create policies where the everyone can be safe and treated fairly, as well establish communication through the environment where the environment practices in the institutions and promote a safe environment where people are valued for what he/she can give. A subculture at work may cause an officer to act in a way that may violate his beliefs. This can cause him/her issues at home, inner conflict, and at work. Then a coworker can come into play on helping to finding a social support group to relieve the stress and perception that has been caused from that subculture. † (Dial Johnson, 2008) â€Å"The three aspects of the social support group comes from supervision and management, helping to stop burnouts and vital in assisting with alleviating stressors, intervention in the job and work setting such as: pressure designed to force them to resign or transfer, no backing when attacked or goaded by inmates, and no support in dealing with public problems with visitors, protestors, press. (Dial Johnson, 2008) The next biggest issue of many correctional officers is not only the officers’ health issues, job efficiency, and job satisfaction is how the organization that the officers work for care about handling the needs of the officers long term. In most cases are looked at through long term surveys and testing when hiring correctional officers and afterwards by correctional facilities. If supervisor can identify what makes one’s life stressful it can help assist in making the correctional officers’ stress reduction easier. Dial Johnson, 2008) The most often caused stressors are controlling his/her own stress, recognizing and helping stressed – out workers cope with their stress, and improving physical conditions as well as mental outlook of workers. à ¢â‚¬Å"The community offers very little support to correctional officers, which causes family issues, and the divorce rate was twice that of other workers in 1983. † (Dial Johnson, 2008) â€Å"Correctional officers let off the tensions of work in wrong places (at home), excessive discipline at home, spent less time at home on days off. (Dial Johnson, 2008) Officers experiencing stress at work took it out on the family and damaged the family and caused major family damage with his/her spouse and children. Shift work, long hours, overtime made it difficult for officers to function in a family oriented capacity and weaken the ties of family support more. Shift work, long hours, and overtime make it difficult for officers to attend important family functions; further weakening his/her ties to a family support system. The most important seems to be peer support in a dangerous job like Corrections. It tends to be because of the alienation and cynicism that the officers feel. The officers that the coworkers were trustworthy had issues about the job on surveys. It was found on the surveys that often correctional officers worked against one another which caused dissatisfaction on the job. The researchers gathered data for the present paper through surveys they administered to correctional staff attending regional in-service training for a southern prison system. This region has 13 correctional institutions that oversee offenders from all custody designations. These prisons hold the death row inmates as well as the high – security prison. The survey was given seven times within three months. Then the researchers coded and tabulated the surveys. â€Å"This survey excluded people that were not in service for fewer that eight months of training. † (Dial Johnson, 2008) The person had to be in direct contact with the inmates was the only qualification for the sample selection. No demographics were made to race or gender. Women also face other issues more so than men such as cardiovascular and obstetric problems. The obstetric issues are low birth rates, preterm deliveries, and spontaneous abortions. (Dial Johnson, 2008) â€Å"Sharing information is important and this can be done at town meetings and on the department of corrections website. † (Cocoran, 2005) Like in many employment situations the officers work long hours and spend more time with coworkers and less time with his/her families. At times the officers view the coworkers view his/her a family. Often the coworkers bring in food and share it instead of eating the food cooked by the inmates. It is good for team building and unity of the coworkers even though most of the employees still will not become friends. The team building through officers bringing food and sharing is seen as a challenge for officers to care and feel pressure and can feel stress from officers. Administration can create an environment where workers are invited to show concern for one another. (Dial Johnson, 2008) Job satisfaction and job stress can be decreased if officers and supervisors can instill concern for each other between coworkers. Officers have indicated that if he/she believes that coworkers do not care about them, officers experience bitterness and burnout and officers feeling fear at the hands of coworkers than the inmates and the deceitfulness of the officers and inmates. (Dial Johnson, 2008) Some of the officers had great experiences with supervisors being positive, showing great unity with the team, and being clear minded. One officer stated he/she loved his shift and unit. (Dial Johnson, 2008) â€Å"New officers report higher levels of work stress than other officers. The survey also showed that mentors should be carefully selected for new young officers. Due to the young officers could get swallowed up by the pitfalls of prison employment. The relationship may foster between mentor and employees. † (Dial Johnson, 2008) Correctional supervisors and administration staff need to make sure that the employees have the support needed to help them stay emotional, mentality, and physically fit to deal with the daily stressors of the inmates in the institution he/she manages. If he/she sees that employee issues are starting, then he or she needs to start looking at the problems and finding solutions to the problems. It could be more than the person itself.