Tunde, Correctional Officer
Meet Tunde, a Correctional Officer who works in the Structured Intervention Units (SIUs) at Correctional Service Canada who talks about the human side to his work and the importance of CSC’s programs. Correctional Officers help keep our institutions healthy and safe, and like Tunde, also play an important role in helping to change the lives of individuals within our care.
Video transcript
My name is Tunde Tokumboh, I am a Correctional Officer, here at Stony Mountain Institution.
I’ve been working in the SIU (Structured Intervention Unit) for about 3 years now.
When it comes to being segregated, no matter who you are, what you’ve done, you’re just another body in another cell, whereas in the SIU you have a persona that comes with you, and you get to build rapport with certain people. And you know them inside and out type of thing, you get to know the person, family, friends, relationships and so forth. So you get to build a rapport and a trust factor with them. If someone is having a bad day, and they are acting out, if I have a good rapport with them I can go talk to them and say hey, what’s up?
Programs can definitely change a person. Their outlook as where they came from to what they are doing now. Be it on an educational base, be it on a cultural base, the programs are definitely a big part of connecting them with themselves.
Everybody here is human, everybody has a bad day, everybody has a great day. You come in with a mindset that is not judgemental. Because you don’t know why that person is here, you don’t know what circumstance they have been in and what type of upbringing they have come into being in their spot.
I call myself lucky for being here because any situation could have been a flip and I could have been on the other side.