U.S. corrections officers’ discourse about dementia
An initial focus group
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jcs.30468Keywords:
dementia, epistemic adverbs, ageing prisoners, corrections officersAbstract
The United States has more prisoners than any other country in the world: more than 1.5 million persons were housed in state and federal prisons in 2020. A sizeable percentage are ageing; Physician’s Weekly estimates that by 2030, people aged over 50, the age at which the incarcerated are considered to be ‘old’, will make up one-third of the U.S. prison population. That group will include a great many persons who have or are developing dementia and who are guarded by correctional officers. We can, then, consider that correctional staff as well as prisoners form an overlooked dementia care minority. Using conversation and discourse analysis, we focus on epistemic modal adverbs as discourse markers in spoken commentary by current correctional officers about prisoners with dementia, as some markers can signal an uneasiness with which they position themselves as knowledgeable about rights and duties in ageing and dementia. Officers frame their discourse to identify concerns about a prison system that deals poorly with inmate losses of cognitive ability and memory and suggest a need for additional training and support in communicating with incarcerated older prisoners who may have dementia.
References
Baillargeon, J., Linthicum, L. C., Murray, O. J., Raji, M. A., Kuo, Y.-F., Pulvino, J. S., Milani, S. A., Williams, B., Baillargeon, G. R., Blair, P. A., Kristen Peek, M., & Penn, J. V. (2023). The prevalence of cognitive impairment and dementia in incarcerated older adults. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 78(12), 2141-2146. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbad136
Biber, D., & Finegan, E. (1988). Adverbial stance types in English. Discourse Processes, 11(1), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/01638538809544689
Blackaby, J., Byrne, J., Bellass, S., Canvin, K., & Foy, R. (2023). Interventions to improve the implementation of evidence-based healthcare in prisons: A scoping review. Health & Justice, 11(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-022-00200-x
Brooke, J. (Ed.). (2021a). Dementia in prison: An ethical framework to support research, practice and prisoners. Routledge.
Brooke, J. (2021b). Recommendations. In J. Brooke (Ed.), Dementia in prison: An ethical framework to support research, practice and prisoners (pp. 179–191). Routledge.
Brown, M., & Brooke, J. (2021). An ageing prison population. In J. Brooke (Ed.), Dementia in prison: An ethical framework to support research, practice and prisoners (pp. 1–20). Routledge.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press.
Bryan, K. (2021). Adults in the prison population. In L. Cummings (Ed.), Handbook of pragmatic language disorders (pp. 691–714). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74985-9_26
Buehler, E. D., & Kluckow, R. (2024). Correctional populations in the United States, 2022 – statistical tables (NCJ 308699; Correctional populations in the United States, p. 22). Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/correctional-populations-united-states-2022-statistical-tables
Canada, K. E., Barrenger, S. L., Robinson, E. L., Washington, K. T., & Mills, T. (2020). A systematic review of interventions for older adults living in jails and prisons. Ageing & Mental Health, 24(7), 1019–1027. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2019.1584879
Chan, V., Estrella, M. J., Syed, S., Lopez, A., Shah, R., Colclough, Z., Babineau, J., Beaulieu-Dearman, Z., & Colantonio, A. (2023). Rehabilitation among individuals with traumatic brain injury who intersect with the criminal justice system: A scoping review. Frontiers in Neurology, 13, 1052294. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2022.1052294
Cipriani, G., Danti, S., Carlesi, C., & Di Fiorino, M. (2017). Old and dangerous: Prison and dementia. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 51, 40–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jflm.2017.07.004
Culpeper, J., & Gillings, M. (2018). Politeness variation in England: A north-south divide? In V. Brezina, R. Love, & K. Aijmer (Eds.), Corpus approaches to contemporary British Speech. Routledge.
Cummings, L. (2014). Pragmatic disorders in complex and underserved populations. In L. Cummings, Pragmatic disorders (Vol. 3, pp. 153–176). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7954-9_6
DataUSA. (n.d.). Correctional officers and jailers. DataUSA. Retrieved September 10, 2024, from https://datausa.io/profile/soc/correctional-officers-and-jailers
Freedman, V. A., & Cornman, J. C. (2024). Dementia prevalence, incidence and mortality trends among US adults ages 72 and older, 2011–2021. The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, glae105. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glae105
Georgakopoulou, A. (2015). Small stories research: Methods – analysis – outreach. In A. De Fina & A. Georgakopoulou (Eds.), The handbook of narrative analysis (1st ed., pp. 255–271). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118458204.ch13
Godfrey, D. M. (2022, May 25). Persons living with dementia and the criminal justice system. American Bar Association. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/senior_lawyers/resources/voice-of-experience/2010-2022/persons-living-dementia-criminal-justice-system/
Gray, L., Wong-Wylie, G., Rempel, G., & Cook, K. (2020). Expanding qualitative research interviewing strategies: Zoom video communications. The Qualitative Report, 25(5), 1292–1301. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4212
Greenspan, S. B., Gordon, K. L., Whitcomb, S. A., & Lauterbach, A. A. (2021). Use of video conferencing to facilitate focus groups for qualitative data collection. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 5(1), 85–93. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/10813
Gu, D., Ou, S., & Liu, G. (2022). Traumatic Brain injury and risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuroepidemiology, 56(1), 4–16. https://doi.org/10.1159/000520966
Heritage, J. (2013). Action formation and its epistemic (and other) backgrounds. Discourse Studies, 15(5), 551–578. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445613501449
Higgins, E. M., Smith, J., & Swartz, K. (2022). ‘We keep the nightmares in their cages’: Correctional culture, identity, and the warped badge of honor*. Criminology, 60(3), 429–454. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12306
Hodel, B., & Sánchez, H. G. (2013). The Special Needs Program for Inmate-Patients with Dementia (SNPID): A psychosocial program provided in the prison system. Dementia, 12(5), 654–660. https://doi.org/10.1177/1471301211432952
Hudomiet, P., Hurd, M. D., & Rohwedder, S. (2022). Trends in inequalities in the prevalence of dementia in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(46), e2212205119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2212205119
Kaiksow, F. A., Brown, L., & Merss, K. B. (2023). Caring for the rapidly ageing incarcerated population: The role of policy. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 49(3), 7–11. https://doi.org/10.3928/00989134-20230209-02
Kecskes, I. (2023). Language variation and temporary norm development in intercultural interactions. Pragmatics & Cognition, 30(2), 235–257. https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.00031.kec
Kiesling, S. F. (2009). Style as stance: Stance as the explanation for patterns of sociolinguistic variation. In A. Jaffe (Ed.), Stance: Sociolinguistic perspectives (pp. 171–194). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331646.001.0008
Kiesling, S. F. (2022). Stance and stancetaking. Annual Review of Linguistics, 8(1), 409–426. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031120-121256
Lee, C., Treacy, S., Haggith, A., Wickramasinghe, N. D., Cater, F., Kuhn, I., & Van Bortel, T. (2019). A systematic integrative review of programmes addressing the social care needs of older prisoners. Health & Justice, 7(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-019-0090-0
Lee, S.-H., & Tanaka, H. (2016). Affiliation and alignment in responding actions. Journal of Pragmatics, 100, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.05.008
Liberman, M. (2009, January 30). Actually [Text]. Language Log. https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1086
Lin, Z., & Liu, H. (2024). Race/ethnicity, nativity, and gender disparities in unmet care needs among older adults in the United States. The Gerontologist, 64(4), gnad094. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnad094
Maschi, T., & Morgen, K. (2021). Trauma, mental health, and medical concerns of older adults in the prison system. In T. Maschi & K. Morgen, Ageing behind prison walls (pp. 121–137). Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/masc18258-006
McKillop, M., & Boucher, A. (2018, February 20). Ageing prison populations drive up costs. Pew Charitable Trusts. http://pew.org/2GttKPn
Nichols, E., Steinmetz, J. D., Vollset, S. E., Fukutaki, K., Chalek, J., Abd-Allah, F., Abdoli, A., Abualhasan, A., Abu-Gharbieh, E., Akram, T. T., Al Hamad, H., Alahdab, F., Alanezi, F. M., Alipour, V., Almustanyir, S., Amu, H., Ansari, I., Arabloo, J., Ashraf, T., … Vos, T. (2022). Estimation of the global prevalence of dementia in 2019 and forecasted prevalence in 2050: An analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The Lancet Public Health, 7(2), e105–e125. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00249-8
Oh, S.-Y. (2000). Actually and in fact in American English: A data-based analysis. English Language and Linguistics, 4(2), 243–268. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674300000241
Poliandri, D., Perazzolo, M., Pillera, G. C., & Giampietro, L. (2023). Dematerialized participation challenges: Methods and practices for online focus groups. Frontiers in Sociology, 8, 1145264. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1145264
Population Reference Bureau [PRB]. (2021, October 21). Fact sheet: U.S. Dementia Trends [Text]. Population Reference Bureau. https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-u-s-dementia-trends/
Rayson, P. (n.d.). Wmatrix corpus analysis and comparison tool (Version 5) [Python]. UCREL, Lancaster University. Retrieved September 11, 2024, from https://ucrel-wmatrix5.lancaster.ac.uk/
Ricciardelli, R., & Perry, K. (2016). Responsivity in practice: Prison officer to prisoner communication in canadian provincial prisons. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 32(4), 401–425. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986216660004
Rizzo, D., Davey, B., & Irons, M. (2021). Interpersonal interaction between prisoners and officers in prisons: A qualitative meta-synthesis exploring prison officer wellbeing. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.21428/88de04a1.918774f5
Schwarzinger, M., & Dufouil, C. (2022). Forecasting the prevalence of dementia. The Lancet Public Health, 7(2), e94–e95. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00277-2
Sharifian, F. (2017). Cultural linguistics and pragmatics. In Cultural linguistics: Cultural conceptualisations and language (pp. 51–62). John Benjamins. https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027264992-clscc.8.c5
Shively, S., Scher, A. I., Perl, D. P., & Diaz-Arrastia, R. (2012). Dementia resulting from traumatic brain injury: What is the pathology? Archives of Neurology, 69(10), 1245–1251. https://doi.org/10.1001/archneurol.2011.3747
Stivers, T. (2008). Stance, alignment, and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affiliation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(1), 31–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351810701691123
Suzuki, D. (2018). Variation between modal adverbs in British English: The cases of maybe and perhaps. Functions of Language, 25(3), 392–412. https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.16009.suz
Tognini-Bonelli, E. (1993). Interpretative nodes in discourse—actual and actually. In M. Baker, G. Francis, & E. Tognini-Bonelli (Eds.), Text and technology (pp. 193–212). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.64.13tog
United States Department of Justice. (2023). FY 2024 Performance budget congressional submission. https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-03/bop_se_fy_2024_pb_narrative_omb_cleared_3.23.2023.pdf
van Dorst, I., Gillings, M., & Culpeper, J. (2024). Sociopragmatic variation in Britain: A corpus-based study of politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 227, 37–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2024.04.009
van Lancker Sidtis, D. (2012). Two-track mind: Formulaic and novel language support a dual-process model. In M. Faust (Ed.), The handbook of the neuropsychology of language (1st ed., pp. 342–367). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118432501.ch17
Widra, E. (2023, August 2). The ageing prison population: Causes, costs, and consequences. Prison Policy Initiative. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2023/08/02/ageing/
World Health Organization. (2019). Risk reduction of cognitive decline and dementia: WHO guidelines. World Health Organization. https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/312180
