3 discussion questions.. 3 student responses.. 1 short criminal justice assignment

CRJ 410: Corrections

Week 8 | Discussion

Part 1: “The Staff World: Managing the Prison Population" Please respond to the following:

Examine the significance of correctional staff issues on their ability to do their job. Then choose and analyze two correctional staff issues that you believe are most significant. Lastly, recommend actions that the correctional staff can take in order to minimize or overcome the issue. Provide a rationale for your response.

Part 2: Student Response

Vanessa Williams

RE: Week 8 | Discussion

Staff Retention Issue

Correction employees work around some of the most dangerous members of our society. Therefore, the safety of officers and other staff is a major concern for employees, families, communities, and administrators.

Maintaining staff is an ongoing issue for the criminal justice system. The dangers of working as a correctional office exceed the salary and benefits. Many employees leave correctional positions because of the dangers they must face daily as they try to manage inmates.

Prison guards have a starting salary of around $36,000, which maxes out at $43,000 after 7.5 years. Correctional officers earn $17 to $18 an hour to put their lives at risk.

Salary and safety cause increased staff turnover, while the correctional staff is required to enter a locked building, that is stuffed with conflicting people who are always considering ways to hurt other people. The reality of the correctional officer’s job increases stress levels as they are continuously exposed to possible danger.

To help reduce turn over there should be a system of reinforcing staff mental and intellectual fortitude. Most prisons do not have offices for management in the same building as inmates and correctional officers. This does not allow productive interaction and communication exchange between correctional officers and management.

Staff Safety Issue

Staff safety and inmate violence are linked and both deserve being examined together as a combined interest. Inmate violence, among the more dangerous sections of the prison residents, presents problems for both inmates and staff.

The most threatening inmates are the ones correctional institutions must keep for extended periods; allows constant brutality within prisons. The correctional officer must control aggressive inmates, while do so puts the correctional staff at risk of being hurt or killed.

Inmates not only target one another but correctional officers also. Because the prison system requires an overhaul, older prisoners come to know and exploit the system, which puts staff at greater risk for harm.

The correctional officer’s safety will be improved by a lack of avoiding smugness, by not being bias to any inmate or race and being professional at all times. I have seen other officers who had been on the job for many years act like it is their job to add to the punishment of the inmate.

In all situations safety is an attitude that should be used at all times while inside of the institution. The reality of the kind of people being managed should not be forgotten. Correctional officers must keep their guards up mentally, emotionally, and physically. There is a need to remember to be professional, follow policies, and go home at the end of their shift.