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The Role of the Prison Officer Research Briefing

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The Role of the Prison Officer Research Briefing The role of the prison officer Research briefing Key points • The Howard League for Penal Reform officers find themselves on low or stagnant and Community worked together to pay despite years of service. examine the role of the prison officer, • Morale is very low amongst officers and few primarily in private sector prisons. This joint see a long-term future for themselves in the report presents the findings of focus groups prison service. Few of the officers we spoke and surveys with 27 prison officers. to wanted to stay working in prisons in the • Prison officers are undervalued and their medium or long term. role has been neglected. Low staffing • Prison officers are enthusiastic for change levels, a poorly defined job description, and want to play a role in helping people insufficient training and a feeling of a turn their lives around. All officers we spoke lack of decision-making power has left to described wanting to make a positive officers feeling ignored, ineffective and difference by developing relationships with unable to achieve their aims. Staffing levels prisoners. They want systemic change so and patterns of working are dangerous. they are able to continue to develop their One officer said, ‘I work from 7.15am to skills and receive the support they need to 8pm and I might only speak to another succeed in their roles. officer a couple of times a day’. • The officers we spoke to felt unable to establish a fulfilling career in private sector prisons. Progression opportunities are almost non-existent in many prisons and Recommendations The Howard League and Community worked • Private companies, ministers and officials together to look at the role of the prison officer. need to demonstrate that they value prison Through focus groups and surveys, 27 officers officers. They must recognise their staff as currently working in prisons shared their views professionals, fulfil their potential and ensure with researchers from both organisations about officers are able to build rewarding careers their roles and the changes they would like to through creating clear career paths that see. The prison officers we surveyed work in enable experienced and skilled officers to a variety of prisons, including large category B progress. prisons, category C prisons and women’s prisons. • Prisons must work to ensure that they have Prison officers working in the public and private enough well-trained staff to allow prison sector gave evidence to the project; however the officers to do their jobs. They must provide majority worked in the private sector, for a range opportunities to develop new skills and of companies. As a result this report primarily specialisms that are met with promotions focuses on the private sector, although it contains and pay increases. Officers must be given important recommendations for both sectors. the autonomy, professional discretion and Value responsibility to make a positive impact. Today it is very difficult to have a rewarding • Action is needed to reduce attrition. A career as a prison officer: the job description and full audit of the training and development aims are unclear; pay is low; training too short; opportunities available to officers in both the development and promotion opportunities few public and private sector should be taken. and far between; and staffing levels and patterns This should be independent of the Ministry of are, at times, dangerous. As a result morale is Justice and fully resourced. low and few of the officers who participated in this project wanted to stay working in prisons in • Prisons across the sector should look the medium or long term. to reinstate meaningful mentoring and shadowing schemes for new officers. Many of today’s problems stem from the lack of Thought should be given as to the adequate value placed on the role of the prison officer, both by length of this scheme and as to whether a employers and in wider society. Ministers, company system similar to teaching or nursing would executives and prison leaders must be more be beneficial in the style of a newly qualified ambitious for current and future prison officers. They year or a transitional probationary period. must focus on providing staff with the opportunity to have successful and fulfilling careers where they can • The government should support the setting make a difference. This, in turn, will have an impact up of a specialised training and standard- on raising the status of prison officers. setting college, akin to the College of Policing, to promote and deliver high quality training Resources, overcrowding, drugs and other across publicly and privately run prisons. problems all play a part in the very challenging conditions that prison officers face. The Overview undervaluing of prison officers, however, has It has been well documented that the number exacerbated their impact. Prison officers feel they of officers working in prisons in England and have been overstretched and neglected. Their Wales has fallen dramatically in recent years, ideas on how things could be improved are all too and that this has played a major part in the huge often ignored. decline in prison safety and conditions. There is now a widespread consensus that more officers The role of the prison officer requires major are needed and a major recruitment drive is thought, attention and investment, particularly underway to increase the number of officers by in private sector prisons. Ministers, officials and at least 2,500. So far, recruitment aims have not prison leaders must demonstrate that they value been met as officers are leaving prisons almost at prison officers and the work they do by focusing the same rate that they are joining. It is therefore on professionalising the officer role and creating timely to look at the role of the prison officer: clear career paths that enable experienced and what are the aims of the role; what do officers skilled officers to progress. The impact of placing spend their time doing; what are the obstacles to more value on prison officers and providing success; and how do prison officers feel about working environments in which they contribute the jobs they do. and succeed cannot be understated. As one prison officer put it, ‘If staff feel they are being make a positive difference by developing relationships taken seriously and their welfare is being looked with prisoners. One officer said ‘I joined as I wanted after, they’ll be more likely to stay, there’ll be to make a difference to young people’s lives…When more staff, they’ll be more enthusiastic, there’ll you join you think you can make a difference’. Other be a better working atmosphere, this will feed examples included having a ‘positive and rewarding back to the prisoners: there’ll be better working career whilst trying to make a difference to prisoners’ relationships, better morale’. lives’ and wanting to ‘show prisoners they can be happy without breaking the rules’. Numbers All the officers who participated in the project said Many officers no longer felt that they could make a that there were not enough officers working in difference as the conditions in their prisons meant their prisons. In some, there were staff shortages they could not form quality relationships with and prisons were recruiting. Other prisons were prisoners. Low staffing levels, high workloads and technically fully staffed, but the staffing levels were frequent rotations to different parts of the prison so low that they did not have enough people to made many officers feel powerless to achieve what achieve the very basics of keeping people safe and they saw as a central part of their role. For example, delivering a full regime. ‘we’re assigned seven (personal officer) prisoners, Officers explained the impact the current staffing but often you might never see them. You might agreements in their prisons had on what they could not see them for three weeks. It’s hard to keep in achieve. For example, one officer said ‘there are contact, but you have to be a good officer and two officers on a spur of 61 men…when everyone spend time with them. It’s difficult though’. is back for lunch, one has to supervise medication Poorly defined and poorly equipped and the other has to go and collect the food from The lack of attention placed on the prison officer the kitchen. This means there is nobody else role was apparent in the wide variety of responses on the spur, the model incorporates completely from participants to questions about their duties unsupervised association time and with all the other and aims. Some described broad and competing tasks we have to do it really means that one officer aims and objectives: ‘You’re the emotional crutch, is alone all morning and another in the afternoon.’ financial crutch, you’re seen as a disciplinarian’ and Another said, ‘on our house block we have 60-odd ‘you’re running a small community’. Others saw their on a wing and I work it by myself. I work 0715 to role as maintaining order on the wings, and felt that 2000 and I might only see and speak to another some of the work they were being asked to do was officer a couple of times a day…I cover two floors inappropriate, ‘I don’t want to be a health worker or and so might not know about an incident in a cell a social worker. I’m meant to control the wing and until the following day’. stop them from escaping’ whereas others felt that Officers said that the standard staffing level with ‘the officer should be putting the prisoner in a position one or two officers to a wing meant that they were where they are ready to return to the outside world’.
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