PERA prides itself on our ability to informally resolve issues between inmates and staff in a non-adversarial manner via our deep familiarity with both prison policy and culture. The first and most important principle we adhere to is respect for the official process. That starts with the unit team in what is referred to as “open house” – set times when key personnel are supposed to be available to inmates and their issues. Unfortunately, however, we too often hear complaints like this one from FCI Waseca (Minnesota).
“Our case manager doesn’t like to see us, even when she has open house. She has her open house from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. during census, when some people can’t leave work. She even makes personal calls during her open house. [But] she won’t see us at any other time. When she is not having open house, which is a lot, she’s hanging out with the other staff just talking, taking almost 2 hours to eat lunch. She does the bare minimum.”
The problem with open house
It’s important to understand two points about the open house and communication with prisoners in general: Prisons built before the 1990s were designed to include staff offices on the ranges, within sight and easy reach of the inmate population. Yes, open houses were held then too, but most case managers were more accessible throughout their shifts to deal with issues – frequently “walking and talking “with the population. This created a positive treatment relationship and safer environments because it was also a way to gather intelligence.
In contrast, facilities built in the 1990s and on located staff offices between the units, behind steal doors, with limited access to the population. (The exceptions are therapeutic program units like Challenge, RDAP and BRAVE. where clinical coordinators have offices in the same space.) That means the open house is it.
Too often, open house consists of opening of doors for exactly one hour, inmates line up, and staff hurry them in and out if they even show up. It is a less-than-ideal way to communicate, especially on sensitive issues. One of the complaints we often receive is that when the hour is up, the door closes regardless of who is still waiting to be seen. That demonstrates indifference, especially since many unit team program reviews are simply a case manager sliding a report under a locked door for an inmate’s signature.
What’s missing in this picture is the lack of unit management oversight. Word about staff who are indifferent and lazy gets back to management. Staff members know who the slackers and doers are. It boils to down to a management supervision issue. However, working against that is the fact that unit managers’ caseloads are so large it provides an excuse not to be present at team meetings and/or to be unable to hold their staff members accountable. For anyone who noticed, when the BOP released its new unit management manual earlier in the year, it was combined with the inmate program review directive. And one of the changes requires the unit manager to be present at unit team meeting. I’d be curious to know how many unit managers are present when the case manager slides the paper under the cell door?
Try ‘mainline’
When the unit team is not responsive or available, “Mainline” is the alternative. This is when department heads and executive staff stand in the dining hall during lunch time. It is designed to offer inmates access to the executive staff to ask questions and/or raise issues after they have exhausted the chain of command within the unit team. To take full advantage of mainline, it is important to know which associate warden is over which departments, as well as who the department heads that supervise specific programs. For instance, email and commissary are under the trust fund supervisor, who ordinarily reports to the associate warden of operations (the AWO).
Too often, when I tell incarcerated people to go to mainline, I am dismissed as if it is always ineffective. However, many things can be accomplished via mainline if a person approaches the participants in a professional and non-adversarial way. It is critical to not allow frustration to come across as combative, to avoid citing policy too quickly or referring to unit staff in a less- than-flattering way. I advise people not to get down to the level of staff members if they are unprofessional and just move on to the next person in the chain. Communication style can either get goals accomplished or cause a deeper divide.
