Prison Overtime-Stress-Anxiety-Suicide
July 18, 2015
Not much has
been said about the stress and anxiety of correctional officers working our
prisons. Regardless how you feel about prisons, there are strong concerns
stirring among the rank and file of correctional officers, private and state,
as signs of burnout and mistakes leads to creating a situation within a system
that is already coping with turnover and staff retention.
Sadly,
nothing is said by anyone in charge after the tragic death of Correctional
Officer John Kemp, in Kingman Arizona. This officer was identified to be in the
center of the recent riots as were many others but nothing was said or done to
allow these officers some kind of relief from their drained fatigued conditions
working long hours, day after day, being shorthanded and keeping a lid on a
tense situation there in the Kingman prison complex.
Officers already
feel drained from the job itself. Working 12 to 16 hours a day, sometimes five
days a week is taxing and takes a toll on anyone exposed to these harsh
conditions. Personnel shortages, sometimes by design to capture vacancy
savings, is potentially dangerous to public safety and the wellness of those
officers working under this stress.
Hampered with
a 15 per cent vacancy rate, and adding another one third of the workforce being
inexperienced, new on the job or not yet seasoned enough to work solo, this
force is smaller than ever before and has resulted in serious breakdowns in
operational and systematic delivery of mandated services causing tension in the
inmate population.
Turnover is
not a new issue at Kingman or other prisons inside Arizona. State prisons are
running the same way with overtime filling slots vacant for months at a time. A
smaller workforce results in less work getting done and less enforcement of
basic security practices that impact the overall safety of the facility and
employees working there. It is a natural correlation nobody wants to talk
about.
These unbearable
long hours takes the officers into another physical and mental level. Many are
veterans already suffering for war or military related PTSD and are unusually
impacted by such stress. Officer Kemp was one of those Iraq war veterans coping
with PTSD and when the riots jumped off, he was instrumental in the way it was
handled.
Unfortunately,
the news that he was the “key “individual who allegedly dispersed the chemical
agents that caused the Hualapai Unit riot was a trigger he was not prepared to
cope with. Stressed from the war, the riot and the long hours he committed
suicide at home. There are limited resources available for recovery and
wellness programs on the job. The stigma for asking for help is strong and
stereotypes them to be “weak”, not strong.
Kingman
personnel should have been given access to some sort of Crisis Intervention
debriefing after the riot. Not just a mere contact with the persons or single
questions such as ‘are you alright’ but rather a deeper intervention process to
assess and identify individuals with extreme stress signs or symptoms. This
process was designed to save lives or self-destructive behaviors.
Kingman is
responsible for housing state prisons and currently have fewer than the 380
officers allocated to be assigned there. In fact, the director, Charles L Ryan,
nonchalantly smirked when he mentioned an extreme vacancy of 15 per cent saying
there were 60 vacancies at the time of the riot. To the best of our knowledge,
Kingman has never been fully staffed, a strategy would impact profit margins
and stock expectations for the stockholders who neglect public safety over
profits.
The Arizona
Department of Corrections brags of offering overtime to officers to supplement their
workforce with tired officers. Not visible behind the high walls and razor
wire, the department is well below their allotted full time employee
numbers. Nobody is saying anything for
fear of retaliation. Everybody knows overtime is a band aid solution to a long
term problem.
Officers are
speaking out on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to speak
for the agency or speak out at all on work conditions. Many have been
disciplined for talking about it on social media and a gag order has been given
in their briefings to stop talking about the riots and anything related to the
job. This adds mores stress, more anxiety and tension to an already volatile
environment.
Call-ins are
problematic- this is called “whether leave “as they are taking the leave “whether”
the department likes it or not. Their justification for calling is based on
their denied leave when submitted and denied due to staff shortages already on
shifts with large gaps of empty posts that are collapsed or shut down.
The agency
director has repeatedly issued orders that call-ins will be subject to be written up for insubordination if they
do not call in on their days off as required. It is this stress on them on top
of everything else that is creating a severe epidemic of poor performance,
morale and work related incidents such as DUI, anger outbursts, domestic
violence and suicide.
Fear is real. They are
worried about being hurt or hurting others. Their schedules are rigorous and
demanding. Their abilities are deeply impacted and short cuts are necessary to
meet the daily needs. Some are saying they are working and existing on an
average of four to five hours of sleep causing sleep deprivation and other
unhealthy conditions to their lives.
It’s just a burnout no matter which way you turn. Expected to
report for work even when fatigued, one can predict error in judgment and
performance as the mind and body are beyond their normal limits and working on
overtime as well. This impacts alert status and vigilance which are two of the
main ingredients of good security.
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