Corrections Voices: Breaking Down the Wall of Silence In DOC

It is a fact that the quality of your employees is directly connected to how they are treated by management. If an employee is treated as though they are valued and respected, they will give the most to their job. In terms of staff retention, the key is so simple that it's honestly a bit confusing how so many managers don't understand it. The key to keeping your staff is to give them a job they don't want to leave. Sounds simple right? Well, it's taken many years for employers to realize this concept. What it comes down to is the way we look at the relationship between employer and employee. Should an employee be thankful for having a job that puts food on the table? Of course, but should the employer be equally thankful to the staff for the work they do? Again, this sounds like an easy yes, but employers often miss this part of the equation. When thinking of this particular error in management, I am reminded of an Officer who left the Missouri Department of Corr...

Corrections is an interesting term for the prison system. The word prison itself is really only used out of habit as most such institutions are now called Correctional facilities. Somewhere a long time ago people decided that prison sounds too harsh. It sounds like a place where convicts are thrown to punish them for their crimes. "Wouldn't it he better if we were correcting, not punishing?" They thought. The idea of a prison being a bad place for bad people was slowly replaced by the concept that facilities could be used to rehabilitate those who had turned to a life of crime. The idea of rehabilitation is admirable. Turning a life around rather than throwing it away in a dark prison cell is certainly more beneficial to us all. However, not all are capable of rehabilitation and many of those who are, are not given what they need to change. This is the problem with calling modern-day prisons "Correctional Centers." Prison is kind of like sending your kid ...

A young woman steps out of her office into the warmth of a summer day. She walks only a few steps in the sublime ignorance of perceived safety. She doesn't know he's behind her. In seconds, he has her held on the ground with a jagged piece of metal against her throat. She can't move and knows that she is in the grip of an extremely violent murderer. This is what happened not long ago at Jefferson City Correctional Center. The full story reveals that this dangerous multiple murderer was able to escape from solitary confinement due to a security breach initiated by the Unit Manager. When this offender escaped, he grabbed the first staff member he saw. She was alone and the decision of whether she went home at the end of the day or left early in a body bag was solely his. A handful of the institution's remaining skeleton crew staff responded and began to negotiate with the inmate. He demanded to speak with the Functional Unit Manager or he would kill the woman in his g...

Jefferson City Correctional Center just experienced the latest in the continuing theme of violence and growing danger coming out of Missouri Prisons. It was reported by local news outlets that a staff member was Recovering after "Allegedly being attacked." As usual, the DOC Spokesperson gave little information and tried to downplay the seriousness of the event. In reality, this is another example of the department not taking staff safety seriously. Fortunately the staff member was not physically harmed and the potential was far worse. An offender who is supposed to be held under strict custody supervision due to a propensity for violence and an "alleged" murder of his cell-mate escaped from a faulty recreation cage and made it all the way to a housing unit at the other end of the camp. This was able to happen due to the lack of staff during the current shortage. As this dangerous and violent offender was roaming free, he encountered a staff member who he took h...

Missouri DOC has a lot of issues to deal with including staff shortages, the constant threat of erupting violence in the prison system, harassment and retaliation issues that seem to be going nowhere and administrative failures which keep the department from making any substantial steps toward improvement. Any addict will tell you that you cannot fix a problem without acknowledging there is one. This is where MODOC gets into trouble. The department has always had an honesty problem. The huge harassment and discrimination issue plaguing DOC is not new, but only in the last couple of years has it received any real national attention. Why? Because the department would not admit that it was happening until they had to. The volume of payouts from the department to victims shows that they were aware of the problem for decades but kept it quiet. This of course was until the Pitch article exposing Corrections harassment and department cover-ups went viral. Once everyone was talking about i...

We have received word that there may be another disturbance taking place in a Missouri Prison. This has yet to be officially confirmed, and if it is true, the Department will do what it can to keep it from the public. We do have good info indicating that there is a disturbance taking place in at least one Missouri Institution. We have made the decision to not release the institution names we are hearing for the safety of those involved if a disturbance is actively in progress. UPDATE: Tipton Correctional Center experienced a Riot leading to damage of at least four housing units and evacuation of staff. Unfortunately the media promotes the narrative of the department without question. You will not hear the word riot on the news. You will only see it referred to as a disturbance. The fact is that staff were evacuated and outside law enforcement was brought in. These are not actions associated with a disturbance but a riot. What we do know is that if riots are actively occurring or imp...

We have talked a lot about the problems in the correctional system in this country. We have discussed administrative failures, criminal cover-ups, harassment and discrimination. We have talked about everything except for the elephant in the room. Now it's time to get into the dirty truth no one wants to discuss. It's time to lay down some unpopular truth. Tough Love Time The reason Corrections is getting worse not better is not because of administration. It is not because of government corruption. It is not because of the criminals in the cells or the criminals in the offices. Corrections won't change for the better because of the staff. Out of all of the people who have read and shared the posts tearing apart the department, a large portion are a part of the problem. To understand, we need to step into science class. Newton's first Law of Motion states that "Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external f...