By Andrea Grant
features
The suicide rate for Massachusetts prison guards is more than four times that of the nation’s highest-risk demographic (men aged 25-64). To find out why, Suffolk University Sociology & Criminal Justice Professor Carlos Monteiro talked to correctional officers and their loved ones.
In 2016, the Massachusetts Department of Correction had a crisis on its hands—and it had nothing to do with its inmates. Instead, data showed unusually high suicide rates among its staff. Twenty correctional officers had died by suicide in the previous five years. The department sought answers from two Boston criminologists.
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Photographs by Michael J. Clarke, Getty Images,
Monteiro and his colleague, Northeastern University Professor Natasha Frost, had worked in Massachusetts prisons before. Like most researchers, their efforts were focused on incarcerated people. The harmful effects of institutionalization are well known and studied, Monteiro says. But researchers typically fail to see the detrimental impact on correctional officers (COs) working in those same conditions for large portions of their lives.
Frost and Monteiro began a multiyear study to help the Department of Correction better understand the profession’s challenges and identify possible solutions. They pored over police reports and interviewed relatives and friends of the officers who were classified as having died by suicide between 2010-2015, a group that ranged from new recruits in their early 20s to senior officers in their 60s. They also talked with current officers to gain insight into the family and work-life factors that may lead to crisis-level distress and even suicide among COs. The same themes emerged again and again.
Life in prison
Long, stressful shifts take a physical and emotional toll, leading to a host of personal problems, from divorce to substance dependency and chronic health conditions. Officers exhibit high levels of post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety. Widespread negative perceptions of COs among the public and in the media, along with the forced overtime and staffing shortages brought on by the pandemic, add to the strain.
Lifelines
“Just treat officers as people, as human beings. It is important to talk to people and ask them how they’re doing—management doesn’t talk to staff unless they’re yelling, berating, or disciplining.”
– CO Interview
COs play a critical role in rehabilitation. They get to know each inmate and are often in the best position to flag changes in behavior and personality for follow-up care.
In airplane emergency instructions, caregivers are taught to put on their own oxygen masks first before they can help others. It’s the same with COs—when their needs are being met, they are in a better position to help the incarcerated people in their care. When they struggle, so does the system.
There are positives the Department of Correction can build on to change the culture. COs Monteiro interviewed described mentoring relationships within the profession. And many take pride in their ability to communicate well and de-escalate tense situations, essential skills for officers who don’t carry guns inside the prisons and can be outnumbered by 60-to-1 on a typical shift.
Changes like adopting the rotating schedules used by other 24/7 professions such as nursing and policing could make a world of difference to the officers, especially early in their careers.
“The stigma has to go away because it’s a real thing—you can’t always be rough and tough. Have a little more care and compassion towards one another. You don’t have to like the people you work with, but you have to respect them and respect that we’re all doing the same job. We all want to go home.”
– CO Interview
Currently, the schedules are determined by seniority, with the newest officers working the least desired shifts including weekends. “They end up having some days off, but they are usually during the week, so those officers miss out on time with family and friends,” says Monteiro. When those ties are weakened it can be difficult to rebuild them, damaging the officers’ support networks. “It can wreck relationships, this schedule,” one correctional officer told him. “It would help morale to have a rotating schedule. Let the young guys off at least a weekend a month.”
Preventing issues from developing—and having an early warning system when they do—could help COs maintain better overall health and resiliency throughout their lives.
“When we began this work we wondered whether troubled people were self-selecting into this profession or if there is something about the job that triggers these problems,” Monteiro says.
More than half a decade of work with COs has convinced him that there are destructive institutional and cultural issues at play. A new study will allow Frost and Monteiro to follow new recruits through their first years on the job to see if, how, and when working conditions affect their well-being. “The goal is to enhance our ability to identify risk factors and develop potential early interventions,” he says.