Interview: A Day in the Life of a Corrections Officer

Imagine walking alone into a room full of convicted criminals. A murder walks by you and calls you a worthless piece of trash and then a burglar strides past and gives you an evil eye. Does this give you a chill up your spine? For Corrections Officers, this is a reality of their day to day life. Corrections Officers are usually not mentioned much in society or news unless one of them is injured or killed. These men and women are one of the many professions that are ignored and unappreciated. A large number of people do not really think about the inner workings of the prison system. I sat down with a Corrections Officer that wishes to remain nameless and he broke down some of the basic workings of his jail. He also detailed one day in his life in the Corrections system.

Most jails are broken down into sections called blocks. These blocks contain any number of jail cells and the doors to those cells open up into a day room. The day room consists of tables and chairs that are bolted to the floor and a television. During the day, the inmates are allowed out of the cells and into the day room where they watch television and play games. Corrections Officers do walk into the day rooms when the inmates are out to pass food trays and medications. Being a Corrections Officer is a very stressful job because you always have to keep your guard up because there are inmates that will attack the officers for no reason. The inmates are divided amongst the blocks depending on which category they fall into. The categories are:

-women inmates

-violent male inmates

-nonviolent male inmates

-homosexual and sex offender inmates