Much has been written about people in prison suffering from mental illness, but now research reveals that those who work within a corrections setting have a high incidence of PTSD, that is unreported, and that suicide among corrections office is not uncommon.
Read the explosive article from The Guardian below.
"Prison guards can never be weak": the hidden PTSD crisis in America's jails
Michael Van Patten’s 18-year-old son came home to find his dad crouching on the kitchen floor, gun in hand, a nearly empty bottle of gin by his side, tears running down his cheeks. Trevor grabbed the weapon, ran up to his room, shut the door and didn’t speak to his dad – or anyone – about the incident for 13 years.
For Michael, this was the build-up of nearly three decades working as a corrections officer at the Oregon state penitentiary. “The only way I knew how to deal with it was to eat a bullet.”
There is little awareness of how the culture of endemic violence in prisons affects the correction officers who interact with prisoners. But with over 2 million prisoners and around half a million COs, it is a widespread and underreported problem.
Corrections officers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder at more than double the rate of military veterans in the US, according to Caterina Spinaris, the leading professional in corrections-specific clinical research and founder of Desert Waters Correctional Outreach, a nonprofit based in Colorado. Read more.
Read Countering Staff Stress—Why and How here.
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