Prisoner Reform and Public Safety in Alaska
Articles
STAFF MORALE:
How Lack of Funding and Support Undermines Prison Staff Effectiveness
As readers of my previous article will have discovered, I am keenly interested in prison reform and positive prison change. With the passage of SB91 our legislature attempted to address this issue along with prison overpopulation and recidivism. Additionally we have seen a host of articles and editorials on the subject, especially about the failures in Alaska’s correctional system. As a result it has become obvious to many that change is needed. The question then is what kind of change and how to implement it.
As previously mentioned in the past several years Alaska’s Department of Corrections has come under fire for a variety of reasons including prisoner deaths, high recidivism, and staff unprofessionalism. While the failures of corrections are real, with a real need for independent oversight and a transformation of correctional culture, care must be taken not to paint all of corrections with the same brush.
Yes, corrections needs to be fixed. Yes, the ‘bad’ staff needs to be retrained or replaced. Yet there are staff that support reformation, including DOC’s administrative staff. Still others are willing to give it a try if they did not feel unfairly targeted and unsupported in a thankless job.
Therefore any disciplinary actions against unprofessional or abusive staff must be targeted as selectively as possible. Such action must focus on the less savoury elements of corrections but not at the ‘good’ staff. Otherwise the very staff which is needed to help reform DOC will be turned against the effort. Just as prisoners need incentives for good behavior, so good correctional staff need to be rewarded for their effort and willingness to transform DOC into a better, more effective system.
In connection with this the state must be careful to not cut the department so far and so fast as to undermine its ability to implement the planned change. Savings will only come, in the long run, from reducing recidivism. Sudden staff cutbacks or closing facilities too quickly may save money in the short term. Yet, in the end, recidivism will still result in an increased prison population due to our failure to invest in reforming the prison system. In fact facility closures before a much larger drop in prisoner population will make moving prisoners around based on programming needs almost impossible. This is especially true when it comes to sentenced facilities, where the greatest programming need exists. Cutting staff too quickly results in low morale as staff feels at risk. Beyond this, it cuts back on the very staff needed as part of reforming prisoners, long before the reform has been implemented.
So, once more, yes the Department of Corrections does need to be fixed. Yet there is a good way to go about it, as well as a bad way. The good way involves implementing reform and allowing it to fully take effect before reducing staff numbers or sentenced bed space. The bad way will leave us with an expensively failed attempt at reform and a steadily increasing prison population.
Let us be circumspect as we move forward, that we might wisely invest in a correctional system that truly protects the public both in prison and upon release.