Letter to the editor: Stigma of correctional officers

For many regarding residents at the Allegheny County Jail, focusing on the residents’ strengths and lived experience, treating each resident as an individual, giving each resident the opportunity to learn and grow and perceiving the community as a resource and not as an obstacle are precepts that are paramount from their perspective to recovery and success in the community.

Regarding correctional officers, the focus becomes something quite different, a singular focus on their abuse of residents, monitoring their violations of the referendum and supporting punitive measures of the officers. The perspective continues with the idea that the problem is “culture” and the culture of correctional officers needs to change.

I suggest that when punitive attitudes and punitive interventions abound, the subculture tightens within correctional officers, and communication, understanding and collaboration become more unrealistic.

What would happen if we apply the precepts mentioned in the first sentence to correctional officers? Why don’t we focus on the officers’ strengths, their ideals of professionalism, their very different lived experience and the many roles they play besides custody? Why don’t we see officers as needing the time to learn and grow, a corrective model where training and support are seen as the important focus and not being punished? Using progressive discipline is a corrective measure.

Why can’t the community be a resource, a place of understanding for correctional officers, instead of the stigma and misunderstanding they consistently feel?

John Kenstowicz

Morningside The writer is an advocate working to improve living and working conditions at the Allegheny County Jail.