The support and supervision needs of prison officers working within prison environments. An empty systematic review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Prison is an integral part of the criminal justice system. When we consider prison, we tend to focus on incarcerated prisoners and their needs. The pressures experienced by prison officers, taking care of prisoners, have continued to intensify, causing prison officers to experience high levels of work-related stress, mental and physical ill health and concerns for their own safety. It is therefore surprising the support and supervision needs of prison officers, working with prisoners within prison environments, have been overlooked. A systematic search of literature was conducted using eight electronic databases: Medline, Social Policy and Practice, AMED, PsycINFO, Pub Med, EMBASE, ASSIA and Sage publications. Grey literature was also searched in addition to reference lists of retrieved full articles. All searches were conducted during May 2021. This systematic review did not yield any studies that met all the inclusion and assessment criteria. Although one paper explored the support and supervision practices for prison officers working within specialist prison environments; there were no papers on the support and supervision needs of typical prison officers, working within typical prison environments. The result of this review highlights a major gap in the current literature and in our understanding of the emotional support and supervision needs of all prison officers. It is now imperative that these needs are identified and understood with the aim of providing a planned and consistent model of care, combining emotional wellbeing training, support and supervision that is beneficial and meaningful for all prison officers. In doing so, it is hoped, to increase prison officer morale, reduce physical and mental ill health and lead to greater job satisfaction and retention of prison officers, ultimately, providing a more restorative and supportive prison environment.