How To Handle Prison Violence

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The inmate population consists of a unique mixture of first-time prisoners and veterans who have been incarcerated in the correctional facility for a long time and know the place well.

Additionally, inmates have different characteristics; some are violent and remain stubborn trouble seekers, while others are cool and adhere to the rules to complete serving and leave prison.

A prison facility provides an environment like no other. Everyone who lives or works at a correctional facility faces a real risk of violence from inmates. Prison violence takes place when inmates fight with their fists or use homemade weapons.

Also, it occurs when inmates attack guards or engage in self-inflicted violence to injure themselves, worse still, commit suicide.

The violent nature of some prisoners may cause prison violence. However, the degree of institutional violence depends on the prison conditions and more so, how the correctional facility operates.

Keep reading as we walk you through the issue of violence in prison and the best ways of handling and minimizing it.

Types of Violence

Types of inmate violence may be defined using different parameters. It may include the number of inmates engaged in the act or whether the violence was spontaneous or premeditated.

Instrumental Violence

Instrumental violence refers to planned-out, calculated, and implemented violence by inmates to establish strength and power status among fellow prisoners.

Prison life is tough! No wonder inmates look for ways of surviving in prison. Thus, most inmates believe they inevitably need to establish strength and power to earn them peer admiration and fear from their colleagues.

Expressive Violence

Expressive violence refers to a spontaneous act of violence. Moreso, it is mainly perpetrated by female inmates. It involves the inmates with intense anger, resentment, and fear suddenly attacking their colleagues.

Expressive violence is likely to occur when an inmate is provoked and feels threatened and unsafe.

Interpersonal Violence

Interpersonal violence takes place when two or more individuals fight it out for any reason. Therefore, when inmates fight because of arguments, the television, insults, or over property, they engage in interpersonal violence.

The bottom line is that it is a minor disturbance between a few inmates.

Collective Violence

Collective violence refers to large groups engaging collectively in extreme violent acts. It is more pronounced when large groups like gang groups or racial supremacists groups fight.

When inmates are involved, this can be very dangerous, considering the prison facility is a highly guarded place.

Causes of Inmate Violence

Indirect Supervision

Indirect inmate supervision ensures the safety of the correctional officer more than that of the inmates. This is why the correctional officer stays in an enclosed booth that gives him a birds-eye view of inmates incarcerated in the facility.

The downside of this surveillance method remains that there are minimal physical interactions between the guard and the inmates.

Also, correctional officers rely on the intercom system to communicate with inmates. This is a one-way communication system devoid of feedback, consequently causing a breeding environment for inmate violence.

Direct Supervision

Direct supervision of inmates brings a personal touch between the correctional officer and the inmates. It serves to minimize cases of inmate violence in prisons to a significant extent.

Guards speak to cellmates one on one, so depending on your interpersonal and communication skills, you have an opportunity to cool off cellmate tensions in time to avoid violence. More often, correctional officers operating under this design have helped solve minor misunderstandings between inmates.

However, in this arrangement, correctional officers may not wholly prevent violence in prisons. It happens as soon as the guard leaves a particular cell to focus on the next cell, simmering tensions that may explode, causing cellmate violence.

Also, Officers remain vulnerable to attacks from inmates, though the method reduces tension and stress among staff and inmates.

Poor Classification and Intake

Correctional officers are charged with a big responsibility to compile and analyze inmate records, more so, at the point of booking into the facility.

Inmate records range from whether the inmate is a first-timer or a hardcore who has been incarcerated severally for violent crimes. It states whether the inmate is affiliated with gang groups, aggressive and combative, and despises dialogue.

Failure to properly analyze records during inmate intake remains the reason behind the inability to see the warning signs early enough. It may lead to severe outbreaks of prison violence among inmates.

Failure to Segregate Inmates

Sometimes, it may be prudent to segregate inmates to avoid prison violence. Some inmates are too violent, depending on their character and the state of their minds. Therefore, letting them mingle with others freely may be a recipe for violence.

Prisoners with damaging behavior and the affinity to neglect obvious rules and lack respect for others need to be isolated and segregated to keep the prison community safe.

However, correctional officers need to ensure they are not denied their constitutional rights in the process.

Availability of Weapons

Inmates remain some of the most creative and innovative people when improvising on items to make weapons. They may use any complicated and sharpened object to make a knife and use chairs and other heavy things as weapons to attack others.

Therefore, the correctional officers are responsible for ensuring all prison cells are not stuffy and are devoid of unnecessary items such as used cans.

Prison staff should always be alert that inmates may use heavy objects and chairs to attack others.

Overcrowding

Overcrowding remains a common issue in prisons in America and the world over. This phenomenon leads to prison violence as the correctional facilities are understaffed.

Handling a significant number of inmates is a risky venture to prison authorities as it may lead to inmate mass psychology issues and numerous other challenges leading to prison violence.

Additionally, a combination of overcrowded inmates, lack of adequate supervision due to understaffing, and access to weapons may be devastating to the security of the prison facility.

Inadequate Staffing

Staffing levels play a vital role in eliminating prison violence. In fact, when the government cuts prison staff and budget significantly, the number of inmates in correctional facilities hikes making prison conditions a possible breeding ground for violence.

Prison Violence Prevention Measures

Prison authorities constantly endeavor to prevent prison violence by implementing adequate security measures.

Prevent Contraband

Contraband is anything that prison authorities have not authorized in the correctional facility. Prison authorities have strict rules and guidelines of prohibited contraband items. Thus, inmates need orientation on what constitutes contraband items during intake.

Also, contrabands may provide inmates with the power to engage in violence. Prisoners must not keep drugs, cellphones, or any other material used as a weapon.

Correctional officers must remain firm all the time and should never be manipulated by inmates to let in contrabands. Otherwise, this firmly sets the inmate on a path to engage in prison violence.

Observe Inmate Behavioral changes

Correctional officers are professionals trained in handling inmates in prisons. Part of their Training involves observing inmates’ behavior changes.

Correctional staff needs to recognize and identify inmate behavior changes that may indicate growing tension and anger. Also, signs such as inmates meeting in groupings may signify that they are organizing a rebellion.

Other obvious signs of anger, resentments, and arguing with staff may be an expression of stress that may explode through acts of violence if not managed in time.

Prison Staff Need to Always Be Alert

Prison staff needs to be alert 100% every time. Staff may never know what an inmate thinks. Also, it would help if you appreciated that some inmates are dangerous and may strike when you least expect.

Never allow inmates to follow you closely from the back. Also, ensure you remain extra alert when taking inmates out to hospitals or other places outside the prison facility. This is the time they plan to escape and are prone to be quite violent.

Never Provoke Inmates

As a prison staff, remember you deal with different prisoners, and some are very dangerous. Therefore, stick to the rules as you interact with them but don’t be arrogant.

Open display of arrogance may trigger resentment and anger that may lead to a violent response from inmates.

Prison Staff need Training

Prison staff needs to undergo training on handling prison violence to ensure they control the facility and avert cases of prison violence.

Training needs include both the physical aspects of handling rowdy prisoners and the psychological aspects of violence prevention.

Skills for Handling Violent Prisoners

Communication

Communication ranks highly among the skills needed to prevent prisoners from violent acts. Staff must be firm with inmates but need to be respectful. Consequently, they need to make the rules clear to the inmates. The inmates need to know the rules in advance. Thus, they need to appreciate the punishment that awaits those who fail to abide by regulations.

When solving problems, let the inmate feel that, as a staff, you are listening to their grievances. Also, if they trust that you listen to what they have to say, the chances are that they will be less prone to acting violently.

Psychology

Most prison staff have a background in psychology. It gives staff a head start when handling issues of violence among the inmates. Psychology gives staff insight into causes of violence among inmates and provides staff with a clear road map and strategies to prevent it.

Psychology helps staff in understanding the decision-making process of inmates. Therefore, staff can develop means of guiding the problem-solving process into a violent free ending.

Physical Force

As much as prison authorities are encouraged to use non-force methods of handling violent inmates, such as communication, psychology, and observation, they are sometimes called upon to subdue a violent prisoner.

However, staff undergo training on the laws and understand when and how force is applicable in different situations.

Conclusion

Prison facilities hold inmates with different criminal records and temperaments. Therefore, it is expected that prison violence will frequently occur in such an environment.

However, the correctional staff is trained on handling prison violence and often comes on top of these situations.

This article serves as a guide on the causes of prison violence how to handle it when it happens.

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