12: EQUIPPING CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS

The prison environment plays a crucial role in ensuring that offender rehabilitation programmes can be implemented effectively, and in facilitating the achievement and maintenance of desired offender rehabilitation outcomes. Correctional staff have a capacity for accumulative positive impact on rehabilitation through daily meaningful and supportive interactions with inmates. The Singapore Prison Service (SPS) acknowledges this importance and has been enhancing its correctional environments over the years, which has in turn led to changes in the roles of correctional staff and how institutions operate. This has required significant changes in previous operating mindsets, systems and processes. SPS crafted its Captains of Lives (COLs) branding, developed a revised mission, vision and values, as well as conceptualised a new set of correctional practices titled 7 Habits of Effective COLs, which was officially introduced to all staff in 2017. To ensure that COLs can embody these 7 Habits effectively, SPS enhanced the existing training curriculum of milestone courses and developed new courses to equip staff with relevant knowledge and skills. To further reinforce this across all levels of SPS, leaders were equipped with further supervision and coaching skills to support their staff in applying the 7 Habits of Effective COLs in their daily work. Research shows that correctional staff are exposed to complex stressors, which may place them at higher risk of mental health concerns, such as depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. Correctional agencies must therefore be responsible for creating and maintaining mentally healthy workplaces for correctional staff to flourish through initiatives promoting mental health awareness, providing early outreach and intervention to atrisk staff, and supporting recovery of staff living with mental health conditions.