Oregon State Penitentiary Corrections Officer Laura Hinkle
Oregon prison officials confronted bleak statistics two years ago after three corrections officers killed themselves and a survey of employees found that three in 10 acknowledged symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
But the health and well-being of Oregon’s 2,500 corrections officers was worse than they realized.
Two university studies, one still in the works, show that front-line staffers laboring inside the razor wire of Oregon’s 14 prisons – from the cellblocks to chow halls to visiting rooms – live in a world of staggering mental and physical tumult.