When I began my correctional career during the first decade of this century, correctional culture was nearing the end of “hard” inmate supervision. There were still large areas of prisons lacking security cameras, and use of force by staff against inmates was frequent. The amount of time dedicated to attempting to negotiate a peaceful end to a cell being held “hostage” was short, and cell extractions were common. Disciplinary reports were frequent, and disciplinary sanctions were harsh. While intentionally mistreating inmates was no longer tolerated by the administration, many line staff continued to mistreat inmates because your peers didn’t report you, and the investigator never believed the inmate’s side of the story.
My, how things have changed! A recent trend in corrections has been the introduction of a series of practices informed by a philosophy of treating inmates with respect, dignity, and humanity. Development of professional relationships with inmates is now highly encouraged. A few of the many softer, kinder, gentler correctional programs out there include Strategic Inmate Management, Core Correctional Practices, and AMEND. Depending on the correctional agency, sometimes there is not a specific program, but instead the change is represented through overhauls of operational policy and new employee training curricula.
Many of my line staff coworkers began their correctional careers in the 1990’s. When they interviewed COs at that time, administration was not looking to hire anyone who was all about being softer, kinder, and gentler. We have an entire cohort of veteran security staff who were trained under a fundamentally different correctional philosophy, and each of these staff members has thousands of hours of practice using tried and true methods of effective inmate supervision. Then recently they all took turns attending a 2-day training on the new inmate supervision model, with no additional follow up. To say that the new model failed to take is an understatement. With few exceptions, most veteran staff continue to practice what they know best, with modifications of dropping certain practices that are no longer permitted.
It has been an easier transition for more recently hired staff—I’ll count myself among them—who have enough of an exposure to a different philosophy of inmate supervision to be open to learning the new model, but were also brought up under a security-first system. This group has a strong foundation in correctional fundamentals including con games, gang management, and other (in my opinion) critical proficiencies since discontinued from the new employee curriculum.
New hires are the most receptive to the new model, but ironically this is also the group that seems to have the toughest go with it. Corrections attracts a new kind of worker these days; one who expects to be more interactive with inmates. From day one they are taught to get to know the inmates, be present, available, and intentional. There are staff playing basketball and card games with inmates now. The fatal flaw in this set-up is the absence of appropriate safeguards to prevent new employees from succumbing to personal boundary violations. A significant percentage of new hires are leaving work in corrections due to forming inappropriate emotional, personal, and sexual relationships with inmates. It seems that little thought was given by the administration as to how to mitigate the obviously elevated risk of such relationships forming that comes right along with encouraging staff to rub shoulders with inmates.
Softer, kinder, gentler has transformed prison culture in many positive ways. There is far less violence, fewer critical incidents, less trauma, and the practices allow staff to preserve more of our own self-respect, dignity, and humanity. There’s little downside to it if you’re an inmate. I’ll rate the philosophy itself as an “A.” The downside has come almost entirely from the sloppy, poorly-executed implementation, and non-existent top-down staff support. Whether intentional or not, the message this sends from administration is that we line staff are expendable. If you can’t adapt, resign. If you can’t spot a con game, we’ll fire you. I’ll rate the implementation as an “F.” I have petitioned extensively for top-down staff support regarding our new inmate supervision model, and it is a complete non-starter. Given enough time, the ship will right itself. However, something doesn’t seem right about having line staff bear almost the entire brunt of the growing pains.
