Impact of a Mental Health Training Course for Correctional Officers on a Special Housing Unit

Abstract

The provision of ten hours of mental health training to correctional officers was associated with a significant decline in use of force and battery by bodily waste.

“Are They Mental Health or Behavioral?”: Toward object relations translation for corrections officers

“…Following the deinstitutionalization of the 1970s (Lamb & Weimberger, ; Montross, ) and the past several decades of mass incarceration, people with chronic mental health needs are “ten times more likely to reside in correctional facilities than in state psychiatric facilities” (Mulay, Kelly, & Cain, , p. 143). As Parker () reports, for the past 20 years, “the prevalence of mental illness in jails and prisons has been a growing concern for state correctional agencies, state mental health agencies, and advocacy organizations” (p. 640). For the care, custody, and control of these disturbed inmates, the Bureau of Labor Statistics () reports over 430,000 “corrections officers/jailers” work in some capacity in correctional institutions (prisons, jails, forensic psychiatric units) in addition to nearly 90,000 probation officers and correctional treatment specialists.…”

“…With the reality that jails and prisons are now among the nation's largest providers of mental health treatment, correctional security staff carries the weight of trying to manage the needs of sick and volatile inmates. Although many correctional officers and mental health treatment staff “share common goals of decent and humane treatment of inmates” (Parker, , p. 643), stark differences in role, education, ability, and philosophy remain. Traditional training for correctional staff has focused primarily on tactical responses to inmate behavior while neglecting psychologically informed training on the symptoms and effective interventions that help inmates cope with their mental health needs.…”

“…Traditional training for correctional staff has focused primarily on tactical responses to inmate behavior while neglecting psychologically informed training on the symptoms and effective interventions that help inmates cope with their mental health needs. Correctional officers frequently report responding to inmates with serious mental health needs to be among the greatest challenges of their work (Applebaum, Hickey, & Packer, ; Parker, ). Further, these officers often express great interest in training on work with these types of inmates.…”

“…Further, these officers often express great interest in training on work with these types of inmates. Describing the role of correctional officers in correctional facilities, Parker () wrote:

Dvoskin and Spiers … argued that correctional officers could play important roles in the provision of mental health services to offenders in a therapeutic manner, talking about the offenders as part of the mental health consultation process and observing medication effects and side effects. (p. 643)

We have tasked hundreds of thousands of correctional staff members to intervene with and manage the sickest members of our communities.…”

Motivational interviewing training in juvenile corrections: A comparison of outside experts and internal trainers

“…Most county and state systems offer their own training academies, usually staffed by their own employees (Khan, 2009). Outside experts with specific knowledge have been utilized for training and have been well‐received (Parker, 2009) but trainees can be sceptical of outsiders’ understanding of the prison environment (Crawley, 2004). To date, no studies have compared in‐house trainers with outside expert trainers in correctional settings, particularly with the same training topic.…”