I’ve spent the past 25 years in the same kinds of prisons, not as an inmate but as someone trying to help the system work better for everyone. I work with correctional leaders to create real change that makes prisons safer for everyone inside.
One of the biggest problems? Understaffing. You can’t run a prison safely or humanely without enough people to do the job. But instead of being able to focus on safety, corrections officers are buried in paperwork, pulled in too many directions and stretched thin. In some facilities, a fraction of the staff is responsible for managing thousands of inmates. When staff are overwhelmed, prison programming stops. Not because the prison personnel don’t care, but because they can’t do their jobs safely.
And the officers who stay? They’re doing everything they can with what they’ve got. They’re working in old buildings with failing infrastructure while dealing with understaffed shifts and nonstop stress. They’re expected to keep order, stay safe and somehow focus on rehabilitation. That’s not fair — to them, to the system or to the people counting on them to do the job right.
These problems won’t fix themselves. If we’re serious about creating safer prisons and safer communities, we have to rethink the system from the inside out. Here are three steps that can make a difference:
• Provide staff with the support they need: If we want better prisons, we need to take care of the people running them. Officers are dealing with extreme levels of stress and have nowhere to put it. The system can’t afford for them to burn out, but that’s exactly what’s happening. Officers need real support. They need mental health resources that don’t just exist on paper but are actually accessible. They need career paths that make their job one worth staying in. They need leadership that really listens to them and invests in their success.
• Train staff in de-escalation: A prison runs on its people. Too often, officers are thrown into high-stakes situations with little preparation. De-escalation isn’t just about avoiding fights. It’s about knowing how to read a situation before it turns into something bigger. That kind of training doesn’t come from sitting in a classroom and reviewing policy. It comes from hands-on experience, from walking through real scenarios and breaking down what went wrong. I’ve been in prisons where a single misunderstanding turned into an all-out war. Officers need to know how to see those moments before they explode. They need to know how to handle an inmate who’s on the edge and how to defuse the tension before it escalates.
• Invest in violence interruption programs: Prison is a pressure cooker. When conflict breaks out, people get hurt. The best way to reduce violence is to stop it before it starts. I’ve seen it work. I went to the South Carolina Department of Corrections to provide violence interruption training. One day, an officer was attacked, alone with no backup. But an inmate stepped in. The inmate, a trained violence interruption mentor, threw himself between the officer and his attacker, giving the officer time to escape.
That’s what happens when inmates are given the chance to lead change from the inside. Gangs run prisons. That’s the truth. But when gang leaders buy into non-violence, the entire system changes. I recently visited a prison where violence was an everyday thing. I told the men there that I would return in a week — but only if there were no violent incidents. They kept their word. Why? Because they had a reason to make it work. When inmates are trained in conflict resolution, they start handling disputes much differently.
I worked with a warden who told me, “If we don’t take care of our staff, how can we expect them to take care of the people inside?” That stuck with me. If we keep running prisons the same way, we’ll keep getting the same results. But if we put in the work, we can change the system for the better.
Andre Norman is the founder of Second Chance University, a nonprofit that works to provide prisoners and ex-convicts with the education, resources and support needed to successfully reintegrate into society.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
