CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS

All over the country correctional systems are being buffeted by court orders to reduce the number of inmates in overcrowded prisons and by state budget cuts. Early releases, whether by parole or discharge, pose a dangerous threat to public safety.

The following predictions apply to all states, not just to California. For every 5,000 felons who receive an early release, 45,500 new crimes will be committed over a three-year period, and 9,000 of those crimes will be violent felonies. Applied to the 20,000 felons set for release under the [California] budget proposal, this would result in an estimated 182,000 new crimes being committed [in California] over the next three years -- 35,000 of them violent felonies! [“Alarming Crime Predictions” (7-18-09)]

Prison budget cuts are being made by reducing the number of correctional officers and other institutional staff. These reductions pose a threat to the security of the prison and to the safety of correctional officers and other prison employees.

The public is rather ignorant of what it takes to be correctional officer and what they do to carry out their duties. Correctional officers are much more than mere prison guards. They are, or at least they should be, part of the inmate “treatment” team. It’s really a tough job with few rewards. Correctional officers are just as confined in prison as are the inmates. The only difference is that when their shift is over, they get to go home. As a matter of fact, in some prisons the inmates enjoy more freedom than the officers.

Bob Walsh worked for 24 years with the California Department of Corrections and retired as a Lieutenant about 4 ½ years ago. He is a regular contributor to PacoVilla’s Corrections blog. In today’s PacoVilla’s blog, Paco reproduced Bob’s essay, “The California Crisis” from the CorrectionsOne website. While Bob dealt with the California prison budget crisis, his comments reflect what is happening nationwide.

Bob Walsh believes that it is up to the correctional officers themselves to make the public aware of how important their jobs are and all they entail. Here are his comments concerning correctional officers:

The concept of “you get what you pay for” is not new, and it is very real: You can pay a kid from the neighborhood $10.00 to mow your lawn, but would you pay the same kid to adjust your transmission or paint your car? Probably not, and if you do happen to have a skilled transmission mechanic or body and paint person doing odd jobs in your neighborhood, you’re probably going to have to pay them a lot more than 10 bucks an hour.

We’ve [Correctional Officers] got to get the word out

Correctional officers are not the knuckle-dragging semi-literates from the movies and television, despite what some from the media, the prisoners and their families and the advocates tell you. They can’t be. A semi-literate would never get through the academy, and a basic thug, even a fairly well concealed one, would eventually expose his true colors and be shown the door.

You don’t need (and you shouldn’t pay for) a lawyer cross-trained as a SWAT team officer to work in a prison, but you also shouldn’t have Paul Blart (of the Mall Cop movie) doing the job either. Blart might save a few dollars an hour for a few weeks — maybe even a few months if you’re lucky — but once the escapes, lawsuits and dead bodies start to stack up, you’ll realize your mistake.

So now all that is necessary is for those in our profession to successfully convince the general public of that.