Some correctional institutions, aware of the need for help away from the job, contract with programs outside the prison walls. One such program is headed by John Carr, a decorated FBI-trained crisis negotiator and clinical director of the stress management units of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections and the Coventry, R.I., police department. Carr emphasizes the right to confidentiality. You will never hear of an officer having his integrity, credibility, right to privacy or professionalism being compromised because of his contact with a stress unit, he told attendees to the American Correctional Association s 129th Congress in Denver in August. Before a CO can seek help, however, he or she has to acknowledge that a problem exists.
Denial seems better, or at least easier.
As McLinn puts it, There are things you cope with until they get to a point where you set them aside and walk away. They become part of you. Sometimes, of course, the stress cannot be ignored. We do see members of our department s officer corps because they got their head broken in a facility disorder, Carr acknowledged. My life is out of control.