The importance of training for corrections officers

Hello and welcome to my new column about correctional staff training. I am a great believer in training, and correctional staff — both sworn and non-sworn — can never get enough. We have all heard at one time or another that learning is a lifelong process.

As a veteran correctional officer, I encouraged my colleagues to constantly be on the lookout for seminars, schools and more that could benefit the workplace and add significantly to their professional skills. I have attended many training sessions and in retirement, have been teaching at the college level and presenting in service correctional staff academy sessions in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Correctional training can be beneficial, and not just presented so staff can get “their hours in.” It involves more than just signing a form stating that staff was presented with material and information. Training must be dynamic and should discuss issues that are extremely important to correctional staff. Knowledge keeps us safe; knowledge keeps us skilled.

Much has been written about the goals of training in law enforcement agencies. In researching that subject I came across several key attitudes that underscore law enforcement, including corrections, training. Paul Whisenand, PhD, is a former Los Angeles police officer and Orange County (California) reserve deputy sheriff. Now a professor emeritus at California State University at Long Beach, his book Supervising Police Personnel: The Fifteen Responsibilities, Sixth Edition (2007, Pearson Prentice Hall) discusses both law enforcement training goals and key attitudes. The basis of this column will be “plugging in” important subjects of correctional training with these attitudes in mind.

According to Dr. Whisenand, training has two fundamental goals: the making of lasting improvements in job performance and the development of the ability to handle increasing levels of responsibility. These two goals interact and depend on each other, and the positive changes in job performance benefits the agency.

This column will present topics that should be considered for training activities and are supported by the key attitudes mentioned previously which are:

• Motivation: The trainee must be motivated to learn skills, which are honed through practice. More simply, the trainees should understand the reason for the training and agree with its importance.
• Learning: Learning is a result of the several components interacting with each other: an individual’s motivation and capacity to learn, norms and values of the training group, training methods, trainers’ behavior and the climate of the agency. Trainees should want the training, the training staff should be competent, training methods should be effective and agency management should encourage training and work with sections to allow staff to attend training.
• Improvement: On-the-job work improvement is due to individual learning, the norms and values of the working group and the general climate of the agency. Trainees learn as individuals, they apply it to their jobs because they want to improve their careers and supervisors should support that. Also, individual learning should not be unused -- if a staff member attends training, he or she should be given the opportunity to practice what he or she has learned. If not, the employee may become frustrated.
• Responsibility: Effective training is the responsibility of the individual, to learn and have an open mind; the organization, to offer worthwhile training; and the trainer, who has proven to be a good presenter. Training should have preparatory stages, explaining to attendees why the training is being presented. Pre-training to gradually introduce the subject and post training to ascertain what has been learned is recommended.
• Continuous process: All training, no matter what the format it’s in, is a continuous process throughout a staff member’s career. When effectively presented, it enhances the staff member’s ability to individually function as well as working with others as a team. Continuous training makes good promotional candidates.

This will be a column about correctional staff training: how to best present it, how to motivate the student and what subjects should be considered. Also, I will discuss what agencies and individual trainers are doing, as well as organizations such as the International Association of Correctional Training Personnel (IACTP). Feedback from you-in the field- is always welcome! You are the “unsung heroes” of corrections.

Hope that you will check in! Thanks!!

Reference:

Whisenand, Paul M. PhD. (2007). Supervising Police Personnel: The Fifteen Responsibilities, Sixth Edition. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall.