I worked 34 years in Maryland prisons and learned some very good lessons.
I walked the prison corridors often.
Both the incarcerated and the keepers of the jail live and work in a dangerous place.
Criminals come from an environment that is full of neglect. Many are born into broken homes where supervision and love are absent; alcohol and drugs are present; education and knowledge are missing; and abuse is probable.
A criminal learns his or her behavior from the cradle, as do we all.
I remember seeing many of these faces behind the prison walls.
Who can work in a prison behind these walls?
Who would file an employee application to make a career out of working in a prison these days?
In Maryland you have to pass a polygraph as part of the employment selection process. The President of the United States doesn’t take a polygraph; the governor doesn’t take a polygraph; and the priest doesn’t take a polygraph.
Why does a correctional officer take a polygraph?
When things go amiss in a prison like they have locally south of Hagerstown, does anyone ever look for the root causes?
Why are there so many stabbings, inmate deaths and employees allegedly not performing their duties. Does that stress of working so many hours of overtime have a negative impact on job performance too?
Stress walks in many shoes.
Recent gang fights and stabbings have allegedly occurred at the Roxbury Correctional Institution; staff are being investigated for failure to perform their required duties; senior staff have been discharged.
What are the problems?
The prisons today in Maryland are seriously understaffed by most existing professional standards. Employees are being required to work long hours of overtime, adequate security staff are missing, many who work long hours are most likely tired.
Staff teamwork seems fractured and nonexistent.
The prison environment is becoming more dangerous for all parties.
There is something seriously growling inside the “belly of the beast.”
The state of Maryland seems to have many problems in regard to prisons; staff are being worked to the bone via overtime, and managers are expected to manage an environment that is becoming more and more unmanageable.
Experience and good leadership seem absent as well; the old prison soldiers are retiring.
How many times has a governor, public safety secretary or commissioner of corrections walked their prisons routinely to examine the state of affairs first hand?
Do they really know the environment they have created? Have they attempted to repair the crooked road of misery in the cell blocks and to improve the hiring process and supervision of staff?
When I first went to work at a local prison in 1969, I was greeted by riots in 1970, 1971 and 1972. A prison riot is no happy place for inmates or staff.
As a warden I was assigned to fix a broken institution after two major prison disturbances in 1990 and 1991.
There was much to fix. This prison was totally dysfunctional.
State political leaders who ignore the problems that exist behind the walls are responsible too.
There are many things that have to be addressed daily if you desire a safe prison environment for inmates and staff.
Good leaders need to be selected to run prisons, not those lacking experience. Supervision is extremely important too; a cohesive unit of staff working together is vital; standards have to be established and enforced; effective training is crucial.
It is no easy job working within the walls or managing a prison.
T. Boone Pickens, a famous oil tycoon, once suggested that “A fool with a plan can outsmart a genius with no plan’“every time.
I always preferred to be that fool with a plan, as genius folk are often AWOL in public safety.
It seems too, “if the tail wags the dog” the head is going in the wrong direction.
If you have poor leadership at the top of the ladder, you can usually expect troublesome problems on the bottom rung.
The governor must take the initiative in repairing those broken institutions.
Good Leaders, good training, good supervisors and good staff are most important prison elements.
The National Institute of Corrections is a good evaluation resource, invite them to Maryland to assess existing prison conditions.
Good luck, governor, in your efforts to improve the prison environment. It may be wise for you to visit those cellblocks to get a firsthand view of those problems that exists there today for your staff and the incarcerated.
You may be shocked by what you see.
Staff and inmates alike are depending on you!
Me too.
