Article 14: Optimizing Health in Correctional Work: Evidence-Informed Feasible Upstream Solutions (ACJ20-A014) by Rosemary Ricciardelli

 

The current article, based in the context of the Canadian provincial, territorial, and federal correctional services, focuses on the health crisis in correctional work. Correctional workers collectively across all occupational roles screen positive for at least one mental health disorder at a prevalence of over 60%. Their most intensive stresses at work are social in nature, rooted in relationships with colleagues, management, and, although to a less degree, people who are under their care and supervision. Physically, although understudied, there is a toll on the body. For instance, correctional officers work in the same environment prisoners live, thus, are susceptible to compromised hearing, respiratory functioning, and infectious disease. Around the world, correctional workers work in a morally harmful environment, watching human suffering, like that inherent in being separated from loved ones, or missing years of one’s child’s life. As well as the normative “pains of imprisonment,” there are also the “pains of employment.” In response, drawing on my correctional workers training experience and knowledge, I speak to how services can prepare trainees better for working in correctional services, illuminating gaps in training and ways forward with the hope of supporting a healthier correctional workforce and thus correctional population.

 

Keywords: Correctional Workers; Prisons; Community Correctional Service; Health; Training

 

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