By Joe Bouchard
I believe most corrections professionals are concerned with recognizing and repairing staff division. Without some semblance of cohesion and professionalism, we are reduced from a working team to aimless individuals with obtrusive weaknesses.
Division breeds resentment. This makes us less tolerant and less protective of one another, which increases potential for inmate manipulation. In short, when we are divided, safety diminishes. On the contrary, when corrections staff get along, safety is enhanced.
In my article from October 1, Dealing with hypercritics in corrections, I asserted that all staff are valuable. Happily for me, this article generated some interesting feedback. One commenter made this observation: “I confess I must disagree with the premise that all staff are valuable. It is mostly true but, like all absolutes, highly questionable. I can think of a small number of people my institution would have been better off without.”
What an insightful statement.
This is a question we all eventually face. There comes a time in most of our professional lives where we become very frustrated with an unproductive colleague -- someone who is universally and uniformly miserable to all, who does nothing to contribute to the overall safety and productivity of the institution.
Someone like this, with no visible redeeming qualities, is very easy to regard as a pariah. And, it would feel very rewarding to yell, “You are useless!” to the contemptuous placeholder.
But can we do this? Should we? Is it our place? Can someone who consistently displays reprehensible behavior and contributes nothing at the workplace to be deemed useless?
A pragmatist might suggest that we should look for the value in everyone. To do otherwise – to separate and discount the offensive staff member – may make us feel better in the short term, but that comes at a price. When offensive staff are separated, their training and corrections experience goes away, as well.
An opposing philosophy would contend that dismissing the seemingly useless individual is like removing a malignant tumor. Cutting them out heals the institution.
So let’s ask again: Are all staff valuable? All but the most hardened cynic will agree that most of us have some redeeming quality, no matter how well hidden. Perhaps the easy qualification is that all colleagues are potentially valuable.
Perhaps our focus shouldn’t be on individual value, but instead on increased safety. We should move beyond name-calling or ostracizing divisive staff – that action only goes part of the way. Why not focus on unity? In repairing staff division, we advance the ultimate goal of every corrections team: safety.
