Prison staff work in highly complex settings, and with society’s most vulnerable and injured people. Unfortunately – and despite their central role in day-to-day prison life - prison officers are an occupational group whose skills and commitment have so often been underrated and unnoticed. In various ways, prison officers’ contribution to making ex-prisoners less likely to commit crimes is constantly undermined. This is a sad state of affairs, since the uniformed prison officer is often the only positive role-model a prisoner sees. Professionalization is directly related to the quality of staff morale, recruitment and retention of the ‘right’ staff. In this webinar we are going to focus on these priorities – the working lives of prison officers and their training characteristics and we will try to respond to the following questions:
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What is 'enough'?
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What should it look like?
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How can we best deliver it?
Date and Time
October 29, 2024
11AM - 12.30PM (San Francisco)
6PM – 7.30PM (London)
2PM - 3.30PM (New York)
Speakers
Dorin Muresan - Moderator, ICPA Staff Training and Development Network. Dorin Muresan is a former senior prison officer, who at the end of his police career was active as Prison Governor and acting Deputy Director General of the Romanian National Administration of Prisons. He holds a bachelor’s degree in the field of Law and Administration, as well as an M.A. in the field of Criminal Justice. His knowledge is based on a three-decade long career in the Romanian Prison Service. With 32 years of professional experience of which 30 years of experience in corrections in the last 18 years he was involved as a project, management, career and corrections expert/trainer, in various jurisdictions. He is a certified project manager and he coordinates projects of more than Euro 15 million. He also participates as an expert/consultant in 15 projects (rule of law, education, health, IT&C, technical assistance programme). He is a certified trainer of trainers with more than 45 courses organized and delivered (corrections, project, management, personal development). In the field of public management, he contributed to the development of 4 prison strategies.
Recruitment and Education Process for Prison Officers in Norway by Kim Ekhaugen
The presentation addresses the recruitment and education process for becoming a prison officer in Norway. Compared to many other countries, the education in Norway is significantly longer, encompassing numerous theoretical and practical subjects. Additionally, the methodology differs slightly from that of other countries. Prison inmates face complex challenges, requiring competence beyond what is expected in other professions. The role of a prison officer is complex, involving both the exercise of power and the motivation for future change. The training program's content will be thoroughly discussed. Several other countries are looking to Norway for inspiration. While it may not be possible to directly copy the Norwegian model due to cultural differences, it is entirely feasible to adopt the best practices and adapt them to suit individual needs. Dynamic, static, and organizational security form the pillars of security concepts in Norway. All three pillars will be thoroughly discussed in the presentation. Safety has always been, and continues to be, the most crucial aspect for society as a whole.
Kim Ekhaugen has held the position as Head of International Cooperation in the Directorate of Norwegian Correctional Service since 2014. This includes managing the EEA/Norway Grants for prison and probation service projects with a total value of 150 million EUR in 6 European countries – Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic and Bulgaria. He is responsible for a bilateral programme with Russia, and a KDI project office in Ukraine. In addition to the abovementioned, Mr. Ekhaugen has the responsibility for the cooperation with USA through the joint programme with Amend, as well as overall international cooperation outside the given bilateral and multilateral agreements. Mr. Ekhaugen has more than 30 years of experience from the Norwegian Correctional Service. His career includes working on all levels, starting as a prison officer, advancing to various management positions, including being a prison governor in Oslo prison (at that time the largest prison in Norway). Mr. Ekhaugen likes to emphasize the principle of normality in the Norwegian Correctional Service, and is genuinely interested in making a difference to the better for people.
21st Century Romanian Prison Service Challenges and Responses by Adrian Neagoe
The prison system is often located on the periphery of public interest. It comes up periodically in discussions, often related only to negative examples that produce emotion, sometimes frustration and rage in the public consciousness. The Romanian penitentiary system has faced two types of challenges: on the one hand, the similar challenges encountered by other penitentiary systems (the nature of work, insufficient access to resources, the change of generations of staff), but also a specific challenge – a negative history and image, proper to a system that had to find itself and reinvent itself after the totalitarian period and which 20 years ago was a military service.
When we talk about the employees in Romanian penitentiaries, we must keep in mind that over 60% of them have less than 5 years of seniority, which forces the penitentiary system to find adaptive measures. The Gen X employees, especially executional staff, are being replaced by Gen Z employees. The characteristics of this generation are very important when we speak about how recruitment, training, and retention should happen. In some cases, we must think about changing the way that work is organized.
The presentation focuses on the challenges and responses adopted by the penitentiary system in the last two decades from an institutional point of view and is completed by the trade union-type vision that discusses aspects related to the perception of the profession of prison staff.
Adrian Neagoe is the Vice-president of the largest prison policemen trade union in Romania (www.snpp.ro), and in this capacity, he organizes the international relation and projects implemented by the trade union organization, being an experienced project manager with a demonstrated history of working in the prison service. The projects implemented targeted social dialogue process, health and safety within prison service, prison officers training, wellbeing and stress management. Since this year he was elected as member of the National European Administration Standing Committee within European Public Service Trade Union Federation (EPSU), the most representative European social partner in central governments. He started his career in the prison service as a sociologist almost 25 years ago and in the last 18 years was involved in accessing and managing projects at the central level of Romanian prison service holding different management position. Between 2006 and 2008 he oversaw training and mentoring more than 80 prison officers in accessing and implementing projects national wide, creating a national network. He was responsible of writing and coordinating the implementation of the first European Social Fund social inclusion project implemented in Romania, the results being recognized nationally and abroad. He coordinated the implementation of more than 10 projects carried out by the Romanian prison administration and was also in charge in 2012-2013 of coordinating the team of experts of the international project „Enhancing human rights-based reforms in Libyan detention system” financed by the European Commission. Currently Adrian is engaged in a PhD program within Quality-of-Life Research Institute, focusing on the factors that influence the prison officer’s activity.
Empowering Correctional Officers: Training for Excellence in a Complex Environment by Doug Dretke
Correctional Officers serve in a challenging and complex arena. They are responsible for ensuring a safe and secure environment through knowledge of and adherence to a wide range of policies, respecting and protecting human rights, and being skilled in various security procedures. Within a dynamic security context, they also play a significant role in providing a hopeful environment, offering opportunities for treatment and rehabilitation programming, and preparing the men and women in their custody for successful reentry and reintegration.Correctional officer training must be a critical and primary focus for our correctional agencies. It should emphasize core principles, knowledge, and competencies that prepare our staff to understand and embrace our mission, leading to successful outcomes in our complex and challenging profession.
Craig Haney is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Professor Haney received his Ph.D. and J.D. degrees from Stanford University, where he served as one of the principal researchers in the well-known “Stanford Prison Experiment.” Since then, he has conducted extensive, in-depth research on the psychological effects of living and working in prison environments, with the goal of using psychological data to advance the cause of human and legal rights. In the course of this work, Haney has toured and inspected countless prisons and solitary confinement units in the United States and throughout the world, and has interviewed hundreds of incarcerated persons about the psychological impact of their experiences. The author of numerous articles and several books, including Reforming Punishment (APA Books, 2006) and Criminality in Context, APA Books, 2020), Professor Haney has served as an expert witness in many landmark legal cases advancing the constitutional rights of prisoners, including the United States Supreme Court case, Brown v. Plata (2011). In 2012, he was appointed to a National Academy of Sciences Committee studying the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in the United States and also testified at an historic hearing before the U.S. Senate examining the nature and effects of solitary confinement.In addition, Professor Haney’s work has an international focus as he has delivered invited lectures on prison and solitary confinement reform to the Irish Prison Service, the Norwegian Correctional Service, the World Health Organization (WHO), and testimony in hearings on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) held in Geneva, Switzerland. Over the last decade, Haney has also helped to direct an international correctional exchange program that brings U.S. correctional officials to Norway, to be trained in more humane correctional practices, including the radical reform of the use of solitary confinement.
Registration
This webinar is complimentary for ICPA members. Please register through the link provided below. You will receive a confirmation email upon registration. Shortly before the event, you will receive the Zoom link via email.