Topic: A Broader View / A Correctional Sense of Humor

2000 something study of Canadian Correctional officers indicated approximately 13% PTSD rate. I am convinced it is higher and the other 87% just chuckle like we do. And on a personal note I did not retire, daughter wants a horse, I’m sentenced to another 5yr stretch.

Topic: A Broader View / A Correctional Sense of Humor

Campi and Shakeyjake, you are both insightful. I believe also Campi that most people (the sheep) have no clue to the experiences we are subject to and have been desensitized by constant exposure. We just started a new hire class and I gave my orientation speech, I was dumbfounded that most of these officer have never had a bloody nose or given one. They seemed like they have been so protected and sheltered that they (except the three former pen C/O’s) don’t have an experience to base any response to violence. I think we have developed that sense of humor (bizarre as it is) as a way to cope. The recent incident with a school removal of a defiant child with the cell phone appalls most citizens because they have lost their sense of order, respect for authority and rule of law. So people become outraged when something occurs that they don’t have a appropriate learned response. I chuckled when i read the incident with the younger inmate and the response by the older inmate. It would happen with the same result no matter what institution we work in. That is the behavior we expect from inmates, consistent across the nation. I would bet we would all have the same reaction to, we would all be saying to ourselves “dumbass, what were you thinking?”

Topic: The Club House / NYSDOCS college credit

You may try Bellevue University (NE). Years ago they gave me credit for my academy courses (Ne,OR,WA states). They have excellent online classes with BS in Corrections Management and Criminal Justice. Mine was CJ because they didn’t have CM then.

Topic: A Broader View / Commissioned or Non-commissioned

I’m not sure if it is the same as Mn. but sometimes (depending on state law) when someone surrenders to the jail an arrest has to be performed by a commissioned officer to admit that person into custody. Say as an illustration: A person discovers they have a warrant, they go to the local jail and surrender to the jail staff, some commissioned officer has to effect an arrest to take them into custody.

Topic: The Club House / Patch trading

Still working onb the state patches. It seems the state went away from traditional uniforms and now do the polo shirt thing. But I was a state Sgt. years ago and will contact some old friends.

Topic: The Club House / The Academy: Getting Started

Nebraska State Corrections has a problem of too much overtime. A recent article in the Omaha World Herald stated there was so much overtime (mandatory) officers were quitting. Never getting enough time off!

Topic: The Club House / The Academy: Getting Started

We don’t have an agility test, it would disqualify too many 5’5 350lb officer candidates. But we (as a former new hire instructor) understand we are going to lose 30- 60% of new hire in the 1st year. It is the norm in our business. If you are determined to stick it out, get the experience then go look at another county that hires full time with defined shifts. They will hire good experienced people before non experienced.Understand the rules for that facility and if you BELIEVE you will do well there talk to some officers, ask for the tour and if they do, give out a few of you business cards or personal cards to the officers and ask the hard questions, especially talk to some Sargents, they are the more experienced of the line staff generally. Also remember that the average life expectancy of correctional officers is only 57. So choose well. Look for facilities that have a 20-25 years and out clause, look at their retirement systems. Benefits packages. These are important questions. I have a defined out date now(note Campi/Shakyjake,Irish etc..) Jan 16,2016. I’ll have 35 years 3 months and knocking at the door of 60. But think about those things.. I stuck it out because i love it (yes I’m Irish and stupid my German wife says). I love being a sheepdog! Read David Grossman US Army RET.
“Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs” and if you think you are one of us, Welcome. We are a tight bunch, mi casa es su casa!!

Topic: The Club House / The Academy: Getting Started

I gotta admit, rotating shifts suck, did it when I was a road deputy. But now you know so where are you going from here? The rest is the past, what is your next step forward going to be, inquiring minds (or mindless ) want to know. We hate to loose a good one but is it for you? Mentoring from these forums may help, may not. Stick it out or take the other path and be a police/sheriff man. Surprisingly, I care. Don’t let anyone know that though.

Topic: The Club House / The Academy: Getting Started

Sorry,64 inmates!!

Topic: The Club House / The Academy: Getting Started

Direct supervision is the norm depending on what size of jail you work in. The smaller jails can’t afford the cost of personal so they go to indirect or intermittent supervision. I think it sucks they only employ you part time, probably because of healthcare costs. So you didn’t know theses were less than full time hours? We only employ full time. The reason you get sprayed with O.C is when you have to testify in court the question will be asked by the inmates attny: do you know how painful it is when you use o.c. on inmates? Why did you spray him so much? It is easier for a juror to imagine getting hit with a baton than what it feels like to get O.C.‘d. So you get exposed. We have units in my jail that have 46 inmates so we are similar in construction. You mention logic, when in the hiring process did the recruiters mention any logic? They will only give minimal training for 2 reasons: 1. It cost money to not have you on duty station so they only meet minimal requirements 2. the possibility that you may get injured will cost them even more money. These are the simple realities some of us have been fighting, bitching ,imploring,begging, and any other word that is similar for decades. Martial arts helps but start with grappling first because that is where your going to end up most often. If you can tie them up for a minute then responding officers will do the rest. Add some martial arts after a lesson in fundamentals in grappling.
Thinking this job was anything like the “Green Mile” is being naive ( no offense intended) but since now your eyes are wide open and you’ve started look here for advice to your questions. I believe we have the best trainers right here on this forum. Irish Assasin, Campi, SHakyjake and the other can give you a different perspective on most everything you will encounter. Ask us the “what ifs”, we all have slightly different but the same experiences. THIS JOB is the most UNIQUE, difficult, scary, boring, cool job in the criminal justice community and it is NOT for everyone. But once your in and have some experience you will be able to go darn near anywhere and get a job in corrections. The inmates are the same everywhere, the institutions are different. In my own case I have worked in 5 different institutions in 3 different states/counties and I’m not the sharpest tool in the barn. By the way we are hiring in Douglas county, Omaha NE full time,16+ per hour and lots of overtime. Just saying.

Topic: Everything Education / College Degree

You all have crossed the Blue Line now, so come on over here on the dark side with me, there aren’t many of us. We are going to have to have a convention somewhere,sometime. OOOOOOOH I can see it now: The Corrections Truth Tellers and Therapy Sessions. Who’s in? Where? Somewhere in the middle of this great nation. Lodging: the cheapest motels we can find. No administrators allowed except if they started as C/O’s.

Topic: The Club House / The Academy: Getting Started

shakyjake has it all correct benning boy. The only way to institute change is to work your way to the top, follow best practices, join the American Jail Ass and American Corrections Ass and drive to the top. If you haven’t been following the state of Nebraska Corrections the state has been all over the news for releasing violent inmate long before their time. The state apparently didn’t follow state law in calculating goodtime and let people out early to reduce overcrowding. One such inmate murdered 4 people when he got out early and he said he was going to do it!! I had his grandfather in the state pen 32 years ago. So you need to become the one at the top to effect change. Watch and observe the culture within the department. Listen to the people here to get some insight from people who have been there,are still there and have years of experience as well as different perspectives but never forget where you started.. Also understand you may make enemies along the way, people you may threaten by working your way up. Ill.. I am still in a position I can’t get promoted from because a person from the outside was put in charge of our department. That person is not a “classification type” and doesn’’t believe!! Now that person is the director, changed the command structure and we are locked into our positions. We can never be the manager of our own dept. because were no longer uniform staff. All because that person and I butted heads on significant issues. I made that mistake, I believed in doing things the right way, not the shortcut way. So heed well if you chose to move up, choose your battles and then when your at the top effect those changes that are right, just and follow best practice models.

Topic: The Club House / The Academy: Getting Started

Amazing that benning boy is getting real training. The real skills needed to perform your duties. Often training classes are mostly book work like college courses. I applaud your facility for making it real. Someday when maybe you become an O.C. instructor, you let the recruits spray you for fun!!

Topic: A Broader View / Homelessness….a problem for released offenders?

The State of Nebraska uses the moniker NDCS,Nebraska department of Correctional Services. We here at Douglas County use Douglas County Department of Corrections (DCDC).

Topic: The Club House / Across the pond

Well it’s good to know where some of you are from!! I am living in Nebraska, US. We have been accused of being a third world nation commonly called HUSKERS, also known as “Cornhuskers”. While I’m mostly Irish with a little English and French thrown in for attitude. If your familiar with the show COPS, we just had a camera crew person shot and killed last night as well as the robbery perp. Only in Omaha!! I welcome all of you from lands unknown and known. If you ever get the chance to come my way I’ll take you out to the west and do some deer hunting, it is a good hobby to keep my sanity from doing what we do and tastes good too, Welcome Tykelad and especially my Irish brethren!! I will get over there to visit my ancestral home land even if I have to swim that North Atlantic!!

Topic: Letter of The Law / Is your agency ready for PREA?

I agree with you on that. I’m not sure what the standard is for the diagnosis but what my years of experience watching correctional staff/officers self destruct lends me to believe that the rate would be closer to 40-50%. Interestingly I didn’t retire because of one aspect of retirement is health, 6 out of the last 17 people who retired from our facility are dead now, that scares me that doesn’t happen often!! I have 1 out of my 6 kids still at home and she needs me there for her.

Topic: The Club House / Privatization

Back in 04 the difference was on the pay: the private companies paid more hourly and the benefits were in the form of stock in their respective companies as far as pension/retirement. Where they got themselves in trouble was the implied immunity from legal claims as I believe the state of Tennessee Supreme court ruled the private companies did not have qualified immunity.

Topic: The Club House / Privatization

Nebraska passed a statute in 1997 preventing the privatization or contracting of private management companies for correctional facilities at the municipal and county levels. However they reserved the possibility of a state facility to be contracted out to private management. I wrote my thesis in 2004 on privatization of county jails, it didn’t look good for the private companies.

Topic: The Club House / Privatization

Nebraska passed a statute in 1997 preventing the privatization or contracting of private management companies for correctional facilities at the municipal and county levels. However they reserved the possibility of a state facility to be contracted out to private management. I wrote my thesis in 2004 on privatization of county jails, it didn’t look good for the private companies.

Topic: A Broader View / Perception of Correctional staff

Dt, you know as well as most of us here on these forums had an idea what we signed up for to be correctional professionals I am with you on being tired of this continuing and deliberate misrepresentation of Correctional Officers and jail/ Prison environments But as the Sheepdogs of society we knew the sheep would treat us like the wolves when they don’t immediately need us, but when they do all of a sudden they praise us as their saviors, and we are!! So when i got into this business I accepted the role and take the little praise we get, revel in it , then fight back the misrepresentations the rest of the time. I’m with you brother and feel your frustration. NOTE: OINB those are really hot female inmates, damn I wish our jails didn’t look like medusa and act like 3 years old.

Topic: Letter of The Law / Is your agency ready for PREA?

Nebraska as well as other states now have laws directly affecting this issue. As the inmates caregivers we have all the power the lawmakers say so we are responsible not the inmates. In NE it is a felony for any staff member to become involved with inmates other than the scope of their employment. It makes sense to me after what i have experience since 1881.Even when an accusation is determined to be unfounded the staff member will always still be suspect. No wonder 13% of Correctional Officers/staff suffer from some level of PTSD (Canadian study).

Topic: Everything Education / C.O. Combat Training.

I agree it makes no sense to eliminate the training we were making progresas on with the ERU, Cert etc.. But I still recommend to officersa that if they are serious about survival skills the seek appropriate training on there own. The main focus here is survival. I my 30 years of experience involving officer assaults most end up on th ground or multiple assailants. Currently few defensive systems teach ground tactics. PPCT has a component called GAGE (ground avoidance, ground escape) however we don’t teach it. I agree with you that those with some experience had to be restrained to following the PPCT force continuem but ultimately survival is the goal. In my current facility those skills are not tauight to new hires. My opinion is having some skills is better than having no skills. I can and have defended (in court) officers using skills not taught within the training curricullem under the presumption that the current system does not address ground skills. The burden of proof for the inmate’s attorney is that the force was excessive and malicious. My sole point is again that in my facility we have digressed in the area of defensive tactics training and training for ERU, CERT appropriate applications. This is a result of lack of leadership from our current administration and lack of a stable leadership establishment. We have had 7 director/wardens for this facility in the 16 years I have been here.

Topic: Everything Education / C.O. Combat Training.

Smetimes we go backward. In the 90’s we here in my county in Ne. we began training CERT for forced cell moves and other Emergency responses, but during the current administration all our CERT and ERU training has been abandoned. No OC, no CERT or ERU teams. We even gave away our dog. We spent so much on ACA accreditation but 0 on tactical emergency response. I am concerned that if needed we cannot respond to any small inmate disobedience in any form of organized manner. We don’t even train new hires for forced cell moves. We are retreating.

Topic: Everything Education / C.O. Combat Training.

Here in Nebraska we are taught PPCT/Warrior Science for certification on the initial year with yearly re-certification. Never enough training though. Like COGRIM I too have been an instructor and competitor in MMA long before it was MMA. When I started some 30 years ago training was purely rudimentary. Even today the training for most Corrections is minimal as compared to Law Enforcement, ie police/sheriff/patrol. While we have made inroads to the level of professionalism equivelent to Patrol we are still limited by our own Crminal Justice community to “less than Police”. We still are considered by many in our own community as “guards”. So the training is subsequently less intensive or extensive. In some facilities County Corrections Officers are even less trained than State Officers. Due to legal issues the counties don’t have the finacial resources to contest litigation concerning excessive force allegations. This sometimes ends in sacrificing the officer. I worked in several facilities including state(2) and Jails (2) and see the difference in training and standards of training. So in light of these issues some of use take the initiative to seek additional training on our own. For our own sake I encourage Corrections officers to do so if you intend to make Corrections a career.

Topic: A Broader View / Federal Bureau of Prisons

Hey prznboss, I am 3 1/2 years away from retirement here in a county jail next door to the east. I’ll have 32 years, 3 prisons 2 jails and a need to move west. Got room there for an old country boy? We here in the county have to mee the rule of 75 for pension eligibility. 20 yrs gets you 40%, 25 gets 50% and 30 gets 60% maxed out. I’ve got alot left and with a 6 year old I am not ready to quit yet. BOP is a good deal unless your over 37 to start. Trained with some BOP people and they were good folks. CERT, PPCT etc…