Correctional Officer Wellness Project presents: Building a Comprehensive Mental Health Program. As the criminal justice reform movement is taking shape with bipartisan efforts to effect change, lasting systemic reform can only occur through approaches that address the mental health crisis facing correctional officers today. Comprehensive mental health programs need to address a number of unique challenges facing correctional officers, including privacy concerns, whole-family impacts, and need for sustained mental health care through retirement. Above all, programs must include the flexibility to adapt to new information as more surveys and studies are conducted to determine what’s working and what isn’t—and as more correctional officers come forward seeking help.
Before beginning the long—overdue work of reforming the U.S. correctional system and addressing the mental health challenges facing correctional officers (COs) today, it’s imperative to understand the sources of those mental health challenges–namely, the stress COs live with every day. Correctional Officer Wellness Project addresses the Causes of Stress in this infographic.
Correctional Officer Wellness Project offers insight into the Challenges With Facility Administration. Surprisingly, the biggest source of stress for correctional officers (COs) today isn’t the incarcerated individuals they work with—it’s the administrations they work for. National studies have shown that approximately 60% of staff stress comes from policies, procedures, and the administrators themselves.
The U.S. correctional system is at a breaking point. Every American touched by the system—officers, administrators, the currently incarcerated and their family members—experiences challenges that can, and do, negatively impact their mental health. Among America’s nearly 450,000 correctional officers (COs), PTSD and depression are at near-epidemic proportions, driving extreme rates of psychological and even physical harm. The Correctional Officer Wellness Project presents an infographic focusing on Mental Health.
The crisis of correctional officer (CO) mental health is reaching a breaking point. Correctional Officer Wellness Project: Solutions offers approaches that can help address these challenges. Administrators need to do more than just make these solutions available—they need to work to create a culture where mental health care is encouraged and valued. Long-term, lasting reform cannot be achieved through tactical shifts alone, but requires psychological, cultural, and strategic change as well.
The Corrections Analyst Community Forum is a place for corrections analysts to ask questions and get advice from the corrections analyst community.
One Voice United is honored to present “I Am Not Okay,” a white paper addressing the mental health crisis affecting correctional officers and frontline staff. In the introduction of “I Am Not Okay,” it states, “The mental health of everyone connected to our correctional system is under immense strain. Officers, civilians, administrators, incarcerated individuals, and their families are all suffering due to the current system. PTSI, depression, and the resulting physical and psychological harm have reached near epidemic levels. Unfortunately, little has been done to tackle this issue directly.”
The Collaborative Crisis Response Training Program funds the implementation of transdisciplinary crisis response training to educate, train, and prepare law enforcement and corrections officers so that they are equipped to appropriately interact with people who have behavioral health conditions (including mental health and substance use) and intellectual and developmental disabilities while completing their job responsibilities. The program supports states and local law enforcement, and correctional entities to plan and implement training, engage in organizational planning to deploy trained officers in times of crisis, and sustain a best practice crisis response program.
Descriptive Study of Michigan Department of Corrections Staff Well-being: Contributing Factors, Outcomes, and Actionable Solutions details findings on correctional employees’ well-being. The purpose of the study is to improve Michigan Department of Corrections’ ability to support employee well-being. Correctional employees’ wellness is pivotal to the fulfillment of correctional agencies’ mission as it is inextricably linked to the safety and quality of operations and to the effective delivery of services in correctional facilities and in the community.
Correctional Employee Health and Wellness states that correctional administrators and other stakeholders exhibit heightened concerns regarding relationships between occupational stressors and employees’ health, performance, and work engagement. Resolutions for this concern were articulated in a 2017 resolution of the American Correctional Association that states that the adverse impact of the job on correctional employees’ wellness is a critical issue that has reached crisis proportions because the occupational risks inherent to the profession increase the health risks for correctional employees. The resolution also posits that the nature of the correctional environment can be a causative factor in the development of high-risk behaviors, such as alcohol abuse. The resolution further adds that traumatic events in the correctional workplace may result in employees succumbing to health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
PREA Poster Templates are intended to provide information on an individual’s right to report, how to report, and access to victim support services. The posters were created in a range of sizes and designed to allow facilities to modify them to make them facility-specific. Instructions for how to modify the template and how to print for best results are included.
Safer Prisons, Safer Communities shares how we are in the midst of a profound crisis in our nation’s correctional system. Prisons across the country are dangerously understaffed, overcrowded, and plagued by rapidly deteriorating conditions. As a result, our prisons are not conducive to rehabilitation and produce increasingly poor outcomes for corrections staff and incarcerated people, as well as our families and communities. One Voice United (OVU) and FAMM, respectively, are two of the leading organizations representing correctional staff and incarcerated people and their families. They have a shared goal of ensuring the health and safety of everyone who works and lives in prison, and they are working together to draw attention to these problems and find solutions to understaffing and overcrowding that will end the national corrections crisis.