Correctional Career
Survival Skills
Part 2
John Shuford
Staff turnover is a major concern for corrections leadership in both prisons and jails. If it is to be reduced, the work culture needs to become less toxic and the effects of unhealed trauma and chronic stress must be healed in individual staff. In addition, the leadership needs to provide their staff with the resilience tools that can enable them to remain on the job until retirement.
Published in two parts, this article describes how improving staff retention can be accomplished through Teambuilding Attitude Conflict Transformation (TACT) training. Part one of this article appeared in the November/December 2021 issue of American Jails and focused on what trauma is, how it affects the brain, and how TACT training helps the trauma-healing process. This second article focuses on resilience and TACT training as an emotional intelligence inoculation.
TACT and Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence skills are part of the healing process as well as part of the interpersonal skill building that empowers staff to make changes to their attitude and relationships. These skills give staff the tools to transform their lives at work and home. The question is how to provide this type of training in a way that officers and other staff will not reject.
First, what are the actual components of emotional intelligence? Daniel Goleman (2006) in his definitive work Emotional Intelligence states there are five aspects of emotional intelligence: 1. Self-awareness—to recognize and understand our own emotions. It is the foundational building block of emotional intelligence, since regulating ourselves and having empathy for others rely on identifying and understanding our own emotions. 2. Self-regulation—to express, regulate, and manage our emotions. 3. Motivation—to motivate by personal reasons and to work toward your own goals, not external rewards like gaining wealth, respect, or fame. 4. Empathy—to understand how other people are feeling and recognize how you would feel in their position. This does not mean to sympathize with, validate, or accept their behavior. We need to see from their perspective and experience what they feel. Self-awareness and the motivation to connect with others are prerequisites for empathy. 5. Social skills—to interact socially with others and successfully navigate social situations. This may involve helping them to effectively pursue their goals and to get the outcomes they want when they interact with others. Understanding that all of us are connected and the impact our words and behavior on others is part of developing social skills.
When officers learn emotional intelligence skills, this new sense of empowerment improves their job effectiveness, morale, and job satisfaction. One North Carolina study showed that 25% of officers were assaulted by inmates in their first year. After 5 years, only 3% were assaulted. Some of the skills learned in those first years on the job were emotional intelligence skills (ACA, 2000). When a number of co-workers learn these skills, the work culture undergoes a positive transformation that impacts others, including the inmates. This could be, and has been, a game changer for many agencies.
Traditional officer training is given primarily through lecture. Unfortunately, emotional intelligence is not always effective or generally accepted by staff when it is provided as a lecture. Once staff learn the training is about emotions, many—if not most—become disinterested and inattentive. During a California training for academy directors, several of the participants complained that they had tried training their staff in emotional intelligence but were unsuccessful. I believe their frustration came from the fact that they trained by lecture and simply called it emotional intelligence training. The reason their staff rejected this training is the result of a brain process called confirmation bias.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality... build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
—Buckminster Fuller
Confirmation bias occurs when new information conflicts with already established information and beliefs based on previous experiences. A clear example of this is when someone who is established and respected provides new information and you are open to it because of their status. However, if this person is not well-known or respected, you may reject, rationalize, or ignore this new information.
New information comes into the neocortex, or the thinking part of the brain, through the senses. But before it gets there, it is filtered through the limbic system or subconscious part of the brain, which is where memory, emotions, and the learning centers are located.
The limbic system is impacted by experience. Because it has no language, experience affects it more than logic. In other words, an experience has a greater and longer lasting effect than a lecture. Thus, if a topic called emotional intelligence is presented to staff, their brains may filter it out. This is why a lecture on emotional intelligence is not successful. An old saying is, “If you tell me, I will forget. If you tell me and show me, I will remember. But, if you tell me, show me, and I experience it, I will understand.” Emotional intelligence needs to be presented experientially and not labelled as “emotional intelligence.”
Duhigg (2014) writes in his book The Power of Habit: “There is something really powerful about groups and shared experiences. People might be skeptical about their ability to change if they are by themselves, but a group will convince them to suspend disbelief. A community creates belief.”
He continues, “When people join groups where change seems possible, the potential for that change to occur becomes more real.… We know that for habits to permanently change, people must believe that change is feasible… the power of a group to teach individuals how to believe… happens whenever people come together to help one another change. Belief is easier when it occurs with a community.”
And experiential learning provides that sense of community and the belief that change is possible.
The building blocks shown in Figure 1 give an overview of the training process. Creating a safe space through affirmation, respect, and caring is the foundation upon which trust, connection, and community is established. From this base, communication and cooperation skills that can empower the participants are introduced, thus giving them the motivation and a sense of personal responsibility to initiate the desired changes. The end result is an attitude change, which can be transformational.
Traditional officer training focuses on officer physical safety and hierarchy roles. On the other hand, effective emotional intelligence training focuses on both physical and psychological safety within the training itself, and this must be established at the onset. When staff feel safe, they no longer need to depend on their roles or identities, and can connect with each other through their shared humanity. During TACT training, job titles are not used and all participants are equal.
Change comes from improving our resources... which in turn will change our expectations...
Self-Awareness One of the most effective community building exercises is Concentric Circles, where participants talk about different topics in rotating pairs. As each person shares, participants actually relax and become more comfortable. It is important for topics to be both heavy and light. Some examples include:
• Provide one positive childhood memory. • Name someone you really respect and tell why. • Describe how your family handled conflict when you were growing up. • Share how you deal with conflict and handle your anger now.
During this exercise, there is often deep sharing and laughter. It may seem surprising that officers will share in this way. However, in my 30 years of working with officers, I consistently witness this behavior when safety has been established.
Many staff share experiences they haven’t remembered in years. This is part of the self-awareness experience—and self-awareness is foundational for emotional intelligence. It is what makes us human and results in humane conditions, practices, and beliefs.
The culture in corrections is strong and overwhelming, and our self-awareness can oftentimes become blocked. Officers must conform to survive; but a lack of self-awareness disconnects us from our core beliefs and values, especially with who we are, our connection to others, and our own humanity. Without self-awareness, we lack empathy, which is essential for healthy relationships, connection, and teamwork.
Training as a warrior gives officers a sense of power and an “us vs. them” mentality that tends to reduce empathy. Because empathy and morality are in the same location in the brain, it can also negatively impact morality. Add the experience of chronic stress to this—which also reduces empathy—and you have a condition for concern.
In organizations where empathy is low, there is a tendency to also limit democracy and move toward a totalitarian governance (Segal, 2017). In corrections, this is an over-dependence on the absolute authority of rank. All of these work against teamwork, collaboration, and cohesion. Fortunately, not all officers succumb to this influence. However, enough do succumb to become problematic—and these are the officers who create many of the issues their peers face today.
It is important to note that the above discussion about self-awareness is not part of the content of the training. It is background information that shows the importance of increasing self-awareness as part of emotional intelligence.
Understanding Stress Another aspect of self-awareness is understanding stress, including its purpose, source, effects, and management. The experience of the training (which can be enjoyable and relatively stress free when added to an understanding of stress) integrates the learning in the brain. The experience is registered in the limbic system in the brain and the content taught is in the neocortex or conscious part. They reinforce each other for a deeper understanding, which is important because stress or chronic stress is so much a part of officers’ lives.
Part of this understanding is witnessing the impact or consequences of stress in their lives. Some may feel they are going crazy. However, by providing an understanding of the effects of stress as well as tools to manage it, staff may no longer feel they are a victim of their stress. Some of these tools include adequate sleep, meditation, mindfulness, exercise, diet, and cognitive reframing.
Understanding Anger Anger is not a primary emotion. It is a secondary emotion that gives us the awareness, motivation, and energy to change something that is unpleasant. Our primary emotion may be fear, embarrassment, or vulnerability, when we experience a sense of powerlessness. We then feel anger, and this gives us a sense of energy, focus, and power to change our situation.
One important lesson in self-awareness is that if we cannot change the situation, then perhaps the situation is meant to change us. Understanding the source and role of anger helps with learning to manage our emotion, as well as realizing we have a number of ways we can respond when we get angry. We can suppress it, express it (explode), defuse it (reduce tension without addressing cause of anger), and transform it by changing our relationship to what made us angry.
This transformation can also include an understanding of: • what was triggered in us, • how the other person was meeting their needs by acting the way they did, and • the role of forgiveness and acceptance as a powerful and healthy way to resolve anger.
Attitude At the core of emotional intelligence is the spiritually empowering attitude that we are all connected and part of a larger community. Without it, the skills learned can be used to manipulate and control others, rather than connect. Incorporated within this attitude is integrity and personal responsibility—that we are responsible for our own thoughts and actions and are not victims.
At the core of emotional intelligence is the spiritually empowering attitude that we are all connected and part of a larger community.
Figure 2 shows the three sequences on the ABCs of Responding. This is an input-process-output model. “A” represents some action or event, “B” that we process it in our brain, and “C” is our response, which can be an action or emotion.
The first sequence in Figure 2 shows a normal interaction. Someone does or says something—or an event happens—and we mentally process it. We then respond with either words or actions or we simply have an emotional response that is not verbalized. Nothing unusual occurs. Notice that all the letters are of equal size.
The second sequence represents an action or event we don’t like, and in which we don’t take responsibility for our own reaction but blame the other person. This is when we feel like a victim; the other person is at fault and we have no control. There is no self-reflection because our attitude is not the problem. This is depicted by the A box being much larger than the B box.
The third sequence represents when we take responsibility for our own reaction and response, and we emerge as the victor. By using self-reflection, we increase our self-awareness with greater understanding of our motivation and behavior. We are in control of our reaction and the B box becomes much larger than the A. The pathway to a change in attitude lies in self-awareness. A helpful way to understand is to use the acronym BEER: • B represents our belief/value system, • E is our past life experience, • E is for our expectations in the given situation, and • R represents our resources, which include our skill set and our knowledge and information.
Change comes from improving our resources (emotional intelligence training), which in turn will change our expectations (now that we have new skills) that can lead to new life experiences that change our attitude (belief/values). The experience of an emotional intelligence training can impact our attitude through all four levels of the B.
Interpersonal Communication and Team Building The interpersonal communication skills provided in the training are not for command and control, but for connection, cooperation, and collaboration. The focus is learning from each other through active listening and assertiveness, then problem-solving together. Active listening is about learning from the other person rather than convincing them you are right and they are wrong. Assertiveness is about working toward both parties meeting their needs rather than using aggressiveness, which is when you are meeting your needs at the other person’s expense.
Problem solving is about learning the needs of each person and working toward a win-win outcome. As mentioned earlier in the North Carolina DOC study, part of what staff learn after years on the job are these interpersonal skills.
The final element of emotional intelligence training is teambuilding. This is the overall focus of the training along with self-awareness, attitude, and interpersonal skills. During the training, participants normally develop a strong bond with each other as well as a sense of personal responsibility to each other. This bond also extends to the members of their work team who are not currently in the training.
This bond continues well beyond the training. As various departments and levels of staff take the training together, relationships between departments and levels of staff improve, especially between supervisors and their staff. This turns into a transformational experience for the individuals and their departments. When enough staff take the training, the work culture in the agency can be transformed.
Conclusion This article describes the theory and principles underlying trauma healing and emotional intelligence training with career survival skills. The actual two or three-day training is simple, yet effective. Staff can learn the process quickly after having experienced it themselves as participants.
When the title of the training is not called emotional intelligence training but instead “teambuilding and conflict resolution,” it is well accepted by staff. When this training was offered several years ago to staff working in the Philadelphia Prison System, their evaluations were 70% excellent, 27% good, and 3% fair. More than 6 months after the training, 82% of staff continued to use the skills learned on the job and 87% off the job—including at home (Miller, 1998).
The fact that the changed behavior was not temporary indicates the change was in the limbic system of the brain. The evaluations from these nontraditional trainings reveal that staff are hungry for this type of experience. In fact, they value nontraditional training and appreciate when their administration offers it to them.
Most of this training is common sense and is engaging, energizing, empowering, enjoyable, and effective. Staff appreciate its incorporation into their training, and administration values it as part of short-term morale building and for its long-term staff retention strategies. If we want to improve staff morale and retention, we must look at new ways of training. If we keep doing what we’ve done, we will continue getting what we’ve got, and our staff are too important to let that happen.
References American Correctional Association. (2000, January/February). Inmate violence; NCDOC survey examines violence by inmates against staff. Corrections Forum.
Duhigg, C. (2014). The power of habit. New York: Random House.
Goleman, D. (2006). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Dell.
Miller, M. L. (1998). Conflict resolution/team building training for the Philadelphia Prison System: Evaluation Report. Raleigh, NC: Collaborative Resolution Services, Inc.
Segal, E., et al. (2017). Assessing empathy. New York: Columbia University Press.
John Shuford developed the Immersive Experiential staff development training methodology, which can improve staff morale, cooperation between departments and positively transform the work culture. He has been providing this engaging, empowering, effective, and enjoyable training for 30 years and has been published in national correctional journals and has led international conflict resolution delegations to Russia, South Africa and China. He can be contacted at john@teamcrs.org or found at www.TeamCRS.org.