Correction Officers And Problems Of Correctional Officers

The Virginia State Police has experienced a rise in staffing issues which include staffing shortages because of poor recruitment, an increase in retirements, poor salaries, and retention issues. However, these issues also occur in other counties around the country. Many local police officers execute their duties, along with the duties of the state police officers. Beyond the low salaries of police officers, the department lacks the proper equipment it needs to perform the jobs well. The lack of money, equipment, and resources has caused low employee morale, which resulted in many police officers quitting or retiring.

This evidence proves that there is not just one factor that causes officer stress, but there are many elements that create officer stress. According to the National Institute of Justice, “Enduring stress for a long period of time can lead to anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”. “PTSD is a psychological condition marked by an inability to be intimate, inability to sleep, increased nightmares, and increased feelings of guilt and reliving the even”. This evidence proves that if agencies don’t take a more proactive approach in ensuring that correctional officers have the resources available to assist in helping them manage their stress, then officers can occur a more serious psychological issue. Post-traumatic stress not only affects the officer, but it affects the family members of the

Correctional Officers play a very vital role in the criminal justice field. Their jobs are very dangerous when dealing with inmates that are in jail and prisons. ”The

Management positions in prisons are known to be very demanding. Correctional facilities are difficult to operate and are forced to deal with overcrowding which leads to an outnumbered staff and a continuous flow of violent and dangerous inmates. An issue that management faces is the occurrence of riots. According to dictionary.com, a riot is a disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons acting together in a disrupting and tumultuous manner in carrying out their private purposes. Some riots are characterized by organization and demands, others by weak and confused formation of leadership, or conflict and violence among inmates themselves. In some riots, prisoners inflict suffering on hostages, inmates treat hostages well,

“Objectively public administrators are accountable to both their superiors and the citizenry— proximately and routinely to the former but ultimately and more importantly to the latter” (Cooper, 2012, p. 198). A situation at Corcoran State Prison was challenged with a situation wherein dual obligations conflicted. Corcoran State Prison became the center of a serious ethical scandal that consisted of illegality, injustice, endangerment, corruption, and conspiracy. Two corrections officers of Corcoran, Steve Rigg and Richard Caruso, were faced with the question of where their loyalty lies— with their superior or with the citizens they serve?

Just as Conover explains and reveals, it takes years to become a professional in the field. Reading Conover’s text, gives a lot of important information and was something unique that I haven't read before. Before reading New Jack, I didn't imagine that working in a prisons could be so difficult. Hearing the information from someone that has experienced prisons in the United States and the ways facilities, corrections officers, and inmates function with one another, has helped me get a better

Conover’s purpose in writing this book not only to share his experience as a correctional officer but to also help readers get beyond the stereotype of the brutal guard seen on television and rumors but to see correctional officers as individuals, offering us a chance to understand

Correctional Officers are a very important part of the Justice System because it keeps high profile criminals off the street and locked up even before they are proven innocent or guilty. The Correctional Facility in many ways is a lot like a jail, from what I saw when I toured the new Pre Trial Centre in Port Coquitlam. There are large thick metal doors to

One problem that is faced in the corrections system today is overpopulation in the prisons. Prisons all over the United States are becoming overcrowded and that leads to many other problems such as

Falling right in line with today's discoveries of wide spread corruption on various fronts, one area that has until more recently remained relatively unscathed is the corruption found within many of the correctional institutions and leading businesses of our nation. Quite honestly, I wonder sometimes if our correctional system has the right people behind bars.

Ashley Smith was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, and adopted when she was just a little girl. However, at the age of 13, she became very troubled and rebellious, constantly receiving suspensions at school for her impulsive behaviour, which even landed her in youth court several times. At age 15, Smith was convicted and sentenced to one-month incarceration at New Brunswick Youth Centre for throwing crab-apples at a postal worker. Within a few weeks of her sentence, Smith became aggressive towards the correctional staff and repeatedly destroyed her segregation cell. Her behavioral issues didn’t stop there, for instance, at times she threw urine and faecal matter at the guards. Due to Smith’s resistance, self-injurious behavior, and aggression towards the correctional guards, she accumulated several institutional infractions, which added 6-years to her original sentence of a month (DiManno 2012).

Prison guard positions have not been well-regarded by the masses. The low pay, even lower social status, possibility of attacks, and harsh prison environments support such a notion. Furthermore, workload issues, such as limited recovery time, multiple workloads and high peak loads have created stress among a majority of officers (Schaufeli & Peeters, 2011). Workload issues have been linked to dependence on certain staff and the inability to adequately fill positions (Schaufeli & Peeters, 2011). As a result, the hiring and overreliance on less qualified, undereducated, and non-experienced workers created

According to the “States Face Correctional Officer Shortage Amid A Cultural Stigma " article states that prisons have about thirty thee percent of shortage and the highest inmate homicide rate in the county. Furthermore, it states that more than 1.3 million people are incarcerated in the state prison in this country and to keep the prions running it requires tens of thousands of Correction Officers. As of right now the states are facing a major shortage. Due to the shortage, many states are offering special incentives, recruitments and retentions bonus to recruit more Correctional Officers. In most state prison overtime is mandatory for Correctional Officer.

     It is important that law enforcement officers are able to handle stress and build his or her zone of stability. Officers have a ready-made support system in each other. They better understand the special problems and feelings that come with the job that friends and family members don’t. That doesn’t necessarily mean that this relationship with their fellow officers will cure all. Sometimes, because of the “macho” image that police officers uphold, they will give back negative feedback in a situation where an officer needs comfort. For example, an officer shoots someone in the line of duty and is having an emotional struggle with it, and a fellow officer (who

As someone that worked in corrections for 16-years, I have seen corruption events at both the state level and at the local county level in correctional settings. I there are two common forms of corruptions that I have seen correctional officers walked out and arrested for having sexual relations with offenders or bringing in contraband to offenders. These unethical actions by correctional staff are ones that break the trust with not only the offenders and staff but also the community that the staff has sworn by oath to serve and protect. We also see that an element of corruption and unethical actions have and do take place in the criminal justice area of police officers at the city, county, and state levels across the country (Andonova, 2017). When we as members of the American society see these corruptions in the law enforcement agencies, it is not only a break in the trust that we give them but also most times a violation of state and federal laws. As a community, we must expect that those that work in law enforcement are going to make mistakes, we know that no one is perfect. But when we see that criminal statutes have been broken by a member of the law enforcement community we must ask ourselves just where the line between mistake and corruption is drawn, and the ethical understanding between the two (Andonova, 2017). The connection between misconduct in corrections and in policing leave a lot of questions to be answered. Such as, are all law enforcement officers