Correctional Workers’ Week 2023: What Could Help Prison Staff?
By Molly Gill
This week, May 7–13, is Correctional Workers’ Week. It’s a week to show appreciation and gratitude for people who work inside America’s prisons and jails. This week is a moment to recognize people that are often overlooked, maligned, or taken for granted.
I have never worked in a prison or jail, but in my 18 years working in criminal justice, I have visited many prisons and talked to a number of correctional workers, volunteers, and leaders. Each and every conversation has been enlightening and made me walk away with thought-provoking questions about what incarceration does to the people who work inside prisons and jails.
My biggest take-away is an understatement: Working in corrections is hard.
Prisons and jails can be stressful and frightening workplaces. Many facilities are understaffed, overcrowded, or both. Corrections staff often receive little training and low pay. Many prisons and jails are old, crumbling buildings in need of serious repairs. Prisons are located in rural areas, requiring long commutes. Because of these working conditions, prison systems struggle to retain staff and fill empty positions. As a result, corrections staff increasingly work long shifts and too much overtime.
Working a job where a person is underpaid, overworked, untrained, and unsupported has consequences that are literally deadly. On average, corrections staff have shorter life spans, higher rates of PTSD, and higher rates of suicide than the general public.
We can and should do better for correctional staff — and doing so doesn’t just benefit workers. Incarcerated people and corrections staff face the same problems with the same negative outcomes. Understaffing makes everyone less safe. Less access to rehabilitative programming means everyone has to deal with increased rule-breaking and violence. Facilities that are falling apart endanger and irritate everyone. When the water or air conditioning or heating go out, corrections staff often suffer right alongside those inside prison cells.
Our FAMMilies may understand better than anyone the need to improve prison working conditions as well as living conditions. We hear many complaints about correctional staff who neglect people, won’t help, or actively do harm. But we also hear stories about correctional staff who try their best, go the extra mile, or step in to advocate for or protect an incarcerated person or a family member. Many affected families understand that correctional staff and people in prison are in this together.
FAMM advocates independent prison oversight because we believe it is a rare win-win solution to improve working conditions for staff and living conditions for incarcerated people. Prison inspections and investigations by an independent ombudsman can verify and shed light on staff complaints that aren’t making it up the chain of command or, worse, being covered up. Oversight can reveal problems that prison administrators might be missing.
Yes, prison oversight demands more of prison workers from the very top all the way down to the entry-level positions. Yes, oversight can lead to changes that require more work and inconvenience. But I can’t think of any other policy that has so much potential to improve prison working conditions — and make sure those improvements are lasting.
Last fall, I was thrilled to visit the Little Scandinavia prison unit at the state correctional institution in Chester, Pennsylvania. This unit was born while FAMM board member John Wetzel ran Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections. The experimental wing adopts the Scandinavian philosophy of corrections, which is all about rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Standing in the newly-refurbished wing, I chatted with one of the correctional officers and asked her for examples of what she liked about working in the Little Scandinavia unit.
“Look at the floors,” she said. I looked. They were a smooth, multi-colored linoleum. I didn’t think they were very special, but she did. “I love not having to look at plain grey concrete floors all day long,” she explained. “It’s so depressing.”
I was stunned by how much something as minor as a change in flooring excited and inspired a correctional officer. If a small change like linoleum can lift morale, imagine what safer and more orderly, transparent, humane, and rehabilitation-focused prisons might do for staff.
Better prisons are better for everyone, and independent oversight is a key to unlocking that. Prisons and jails will never be places that are free of suffering. Incarceration all by itself is intensely painful, and working in that environment has to take a toll. But with oversight and a commitment to improving conditions for everyone, maybe we can at least make prisons less dangerous and demoralizing for the people who live and work there.
Ask your lawmakers to support independent prison oversight in your state today.
Molly Gill is FAMM’s Vice President of Policy.
