Broadly, working in a correction setting requires various forms of communication methods. Officers communicate with supervisors, inmates, the public, and the administration. However, effective communicating is usually the most incredible skill that a correctional officer can possess. Effective communication in these facilities is essential for individuals to pass directives, concepts, and ideas daily, hard to maintain. There is a wide range of barriers to effective communication in correctional facilities. Supervisors and other correctional officers have difficulty passing information, thus making it hard to communicate with inmates. Although communication in these facilities can occur verbally, it is also essential for involved parties to learn written communication. They need to be proficient in both methods. Designing the messages can be challenging when required immediately. Therefore, practical skills must get incorporated in improving communication in correctional facilities. Learning from the failures and strengths, individuals will have the capability to hone these skills for better communication.
This paper will discuss the various methods of improving communication in correctional settings. Correctional officers ensure convicts are on track according to all rules and guidelines; they also maintain inmates' security and watch their activities every day. Therefore, the officers must incorporate interpersonal skills to perform their job efficiently, maintain safety, and keep order.
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Skills Applied in Correctional Setting
Communication
Speaking and listening skills are significant for a prison officer since they must ease communication in correction facilities. Thus, the guards require knowledge on ways of communicating on day-to-day works and procedures; the officer also needs to understand the facility's rules and regulations and disciplinary measures ( Lambert et al., 2002 ). The tone that an officer uses and their body language influence the behavior of incarcerated individuals. Consequently, the level to which officers can listen to an inmate also affects the inmate's response.
Monitoring
Checking on incarcerated individuals and understanding the happenings is a significant skill in any correctional facility. If officers are not aware of inmates' and communications' actions, they might miss some details, leading to danger and havoc. Therefore, officers need to have the capability to listen and look into any signs that might affect the well-being of staff and inmates. This ideology also integrates physical search in cells, searching individual inmates and other common areas. Nonetheless, the searching must maintain boundaries based on the rules and laws of the correctional facility.
Negotiation
Developing a decent rapport with the imprisoned individual is significant for correctional majors to maintain care and compliance. The skill of concession helps officers resolve and intercede conflicts. Negotiating incorporates the capability to display empathy and sensitivity for the convict, thus making the prisoner feel acknowledged. Therefore, correctional facilities should balance discipline and compassion.
Importance of Good Communication in a Correctional Facility
In a correctional setting, effective communication is highly essential since it aids the facilities workers in communicating internally concerning some policies and procedures that might primarily affect their daily operations. Moreover, effective communication in these facilities can foster the relevant relationship between the employees and the judicial system, thus improving morale and efficiency in the settings. Effective communication has been identified as the best method to pass a point and minimize turmoil in correctional facilities.
An effective form of communication in correctional facilities is written communication. In these settings, correctional officers must master different writing skills to communicate rightfully, where paperwork is involved or when memorandums come at hand. In these facilities, writing communication is not only the communication method used but also oral communication. Oral communication is very significant in a correctional facility ( Iversen et al., 2013 ). It tends to sheath over communication, and it gets applied to keep the places running precisely and adequately. The two forms of communication are the most applied throughout the correctional setting.
The role of written documentation in a correctional facility involves protecting individuals involved within the correctional setting. People working in a correction facility face danger both on and off duty; thus, having written documentation aids with enforcing and implementing regulations and creating and communicating ideologies or a system visually. Written communication also aids in writing reports like corrections reports. In such statements, the officer writing must paint a picture through writing. Therefore, improving written communication among correctional facilities officers helps to reference an incident that requires attention.
Communication between Prisoners and Families
Imprisonment has consequences for inmates and their relatives. In America, over two million incarcerated people have minor children. Separation generated through incarceration affects the interrelationships between inmates and their significant others, children, and spouses. For individuals in prisons, divorce is more likely to occur, which leads to sibling's separation. Fines and fees might also cause substantial financial problems to families.
Additionally, inmate's children are likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems, which often possess long-term consequences ( Nurse et al., 2003 ). However, communication between inmates and their families can aid in alleviating many family connection concerns. Similar communication can assist in improving the behavior of inmates during and after the correction setting.
Nonetheless, despite these benefits, practical and physical restrictions often prevent communications. Therefore, through technology, there has been an improvement in communication between the imprisoned and their families. This is because technology will minimize the obstacles associated with physical visitations by creating online communication tools. From the traditional sending of mails, correctional phones use FaceTime, Twitter, and Skype ( Sobol, 2018 ). Nonetheless, although the growth of technology has increased, there have been questions whether there is an advantage of physical visitations in favor of telephone or video communications that can be detrimental to prisoners and their families.
Communication between family members and inmates has shown positive outcomes for both children and spouse of the prisoner. Studies have also shown adverse reactions associated with the inability to have such contacts ( National Institute of Justice (NIJ), 2018 ). However, children who have these communications exhibit less anxious and disruptive behaviors. Nonetheless, programs promoting the visitations with imprisoned parents have shown positive influence for children; significantly boosting parent-children bonding, less fear and anxiety, great performances in school, and improving behaviors—the interaction and communication improvement aid inmates in addressing the isolation created by incarceration. From Sobol (2018) reports, communication helps inmates keep in mind that there are people who still love them and raise their spirits to understand that they are not abandoned. It benefits them to maintain a connection with the outside world.
In reducing the risks involved in physical visitation, correction departments have incorporated electronic messaging to minimize travel logistics and costs, long waiting, and exposure of loved ones to potentially traumatic and unfriendly correctional environs. The benefit of electronic messaging is that it minimizes delays and offers instantaneous communication. The department also spends little time inspecting information as it does on received mails. Nonetheless, the department can apply electronic means in reviewing the content of an electronic message. Thus, to help improve electronic messaging, some departments have considered offering free laptops to inmates. An added advantage to this is that inmates can use a single notebook for training and education.
Building Trust Relationships with Inmates for better health
Correctional setting nurses must establish a trust relationship with the inmates for accurate information and efficient evaluation of requests and symptoms. Inmates assume everyone is trying to do the same, thus distrusting everyone, spending their lives in deceit. However, in correctional settings, nurses get aligned with officers' motivation, and inmates believe that they might use disclosed data against them. Therefore, trust must be developed while a nurse is working with an imprisoned client by considering several elements.
One aspect to consider is respect. Nurses must develop a great rapport with an inmate by showing respect. Respect is an unconditional positive repute between parties, and it is rare in many correctional facilities. Therefore, a nurse should respect a patient through being genuine, nonjudgmental, and accepting what they say or do. Additionally, nurses should not treat the patients as objects, conditions, or numbers, as inmates are like regular patients and can feel depersonalized. Nurses should not treat inmates as unimportant, uneducated, or uninteresting. Feeling physically and emotionally safe will improve the rapport between a nurse and an inmate, therefore, developing trust.
A nurse should also listen, follow through and be honest with the inmate. An inmate will trust a listening nurse. Besides, building a solid communication strategy with the inmates creates a trust relationship via incorporating credibility. A patient must see the nurse follows through on what they commit to doing. Therefore, by communicating efficiently with an inmate, their health will get considered physically safe and understood.
Nonetheless, the correctional settings possess highly vulnerable groups, including those with a learning disability, who cannot appropriately communicate and finds it hard to incorporate the facility's regime and occurrences around them. Prisons also have an older population, and others are serving long jail terms. Others with deteriorated health make healthcare providers experience a challenging environment to achieve sustainable inmates' health. Therefore, correction facilities connected with healthcare providers should integrate all these factors and offer a necessary communication platform and formats required to cater to all inmates.
Recommendations for Maintaining Communication in Correction Setting
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is committed to establishing assessment that will create knowledge in developing and maintaining a correction setting's workforce that possesses committed and qualified individuals. NIJ is mainly on the lookout for factors that motivate and influence corrections workers today and attract viable recruits to the correctional facilities profession ( National Institute of Justice (NIJ), 2018 ). The association must assess the required personnel's skills and knowledge needed to stress correctional facilities.
Broadly, it is significant for the correctional setting to be staffed with the resilient, well-trained, skilled, and educated self who can support the agencies' plan to improve officers' and inmates' safety. Nonetheless, most correction facilities report cases of issues with understaffing and officers with poor work ethics ( Iversen et al., 2013 ). Good correction facilities officers will make sure communication is a core attribute with inmates. Prison officers, therefore, have the responsibility to undertake an honest, uncompromising, and professional relationship with the inmates. Staffs want to perceive an incarnated individual succeed in reentry and at times possess great advice to share with the prisoners along the way; their interrelationship with every inmate should be unbiased. In correction facilities, pressure can be very overwhelming, mainly at the beginning. Therefore, great correction officers can be of great help to ensure support and care of the incarnated.
It is recommended that correctional facilities be near the population center for outstanding communication and bridging the gap between inmates and their families for easier visitation. This approach helps acquire treatment materials for the incarcerated when the need arises and ensures inmates' security ( Lambert et al., 2002 ). Nonetheless, in a correction setting, inmates are exposed to specific constructive activities, which model their technical and social skills. Through these interactions, inmates develop their communication skills and reduce stress or any pressure of loneliness. It also prevents mental deterioration and idleness of inmates. Prison organizations also establish individualized programming plans after consultation with every inmate. In every correction setting, prisoners can have educational chances, substance abuse treatments, mental health treatment programs, and counseling programs to ensure inmates' physical and psychological health is checked. All these programs allow interactions, thus improving communication in correctional facilities.
In conclusion, it is paramount to offer suitable innovation-centered methods of improving communication within the ever-challenging correction setting. Electronic communication not only aids in ensuring security but also provide valuable support for the incarcerated individuals. Additionally, integrated multimedia programs also ensure better interventions and decision-making in a penitentiary context. Data analytics can use the information gathered by communication instruments in prisons to predict behavior patterns on the inmate. Therefore, communication is a significant aspect in correction facilities. For instance, communication between inmates and their families has helped maintain family stability, minimize crimes, and improve the reentry of the incarcerated into society.
Nonetheless, although in-person visitation might be the best, its risks are high, and correction facilities should consider other communication forms for supplementing in-person visits. Communication between staff, inmates, and other parties like nurses should also get considered. Interactions between inmates are vital and must be maintained by organizing activities and learning programs in correction facilities. Communication ensures connection and maintains love mainly in long sentences; thus, constant checks on inmates will aid in the inmates' future and overall attitude development. This is because they feel that they are not abandoned and are still important in society.
References
Iversen, V. C., Mangerud, W. L., Eik-Nes, T. T., & Kjelsberg, E. (2013). Communication problems and language barriers between foreign inmates and prison officers. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies , 11 (1), 65-77.
Lambert, E., Hogan, N. L., Barton, S., & Clarke, A. (2002). The impact of instrumental communication and integration on correctional staff. The Justice Professional , 15 (2), 181-193.
Nurse, J., Woodcock, P., & Ormsby, J. (2003). Influence of environmental factors on mental health within prisons: focus group study. BMJ , 327 (7413), 480. Retrieved from: https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7413/480.short
National Institute of Justice (NIJ), US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, & United States of America. (2018). Corrections Strategic Research Plan 2018-2023. Retrieved from: https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=274141
Sobol, N. L. (2018). Connecting the Disconnected Communication Technologies for the Incarcerated. Wake Forest L. Rev. , 53 , 559. Retrieved from: https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/wflr53§ion=23
