"The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor." — Vince Lombardi
By Tracy Barnhart
CorrectionsOne columnist
When you first start working in a correctional environment, you get hit with a culture shock. You realize that the inmates are not always locked in their cells, and they get more than bread and water to eat. Your preconceived notions of what privileges inmates should and should not have are challenged.
It's at this point many correctional staff ask themselves, "What have I gotten myself into?" Maybe you’ve asked yourself that today. In that case, a little understanding goes a long way in helping corrections officers keep their perspective — and cool.
Keeping your cool is particularly important with juvenile inmates, who, like most kids, are likely to test authority figures to the Nth. Many of these kids come from extreme hardship and have seldom internalized boundaries — rules. So, in order to effectively communicate expectations in a juvenile correctional facility, we must first understand the reasons behind the aggression – that is, what sets juvenile inmates off.
Why aggression? Before you can excel in your profession, you must apply a clear understanding as to why the incarcerated become aggressive and non-compliant. In this way, you will be better able to anticipate and neutralize violent outbursts.
A significant number of inmates are dysfunctional to begin with. Their afflictions run the gamut from chemical imbalances and addictive personalities to attention deficit disorders — the list goes on. When an already troubled youth finds himself in an isolated prison environment, his normal emotional state is highly disrupted. He doesn't know how to handle it. As a result, juveniles are apt to “let it out” with aggression.
Some individuals become aggressive when isolated from the outside world. Sensory deprivation can attack the senses and cause psychological turmoil. This is especially true of a juvenile, whose brain is in a critical stage of rapid development and is thus highly susceptible to trauma.
To the criminal youth, aggression is physical and tangible. It makes sense. Aggression is an understood and accepted behavior among this cohort as a result of a lifetime of anger, manipulation, crime and dysfunction. This behavior reduces one’s senses to instinct and in this way, allows the inmate to “downshift” in order to escape the emotional mayhem of prison life.
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