Personal Narrative: A Career As A Correctional Officer

At the tender age of eighteen, I began my career as a correctional officer with the Texas Department of Corrections at the Ellis I Unit in Huntsville, Texas, a town with population of only about 30,000 people, but with seven prisons and more than 13,000 inmates. I attended a lengthy and thorough pre-service training academy that was conducted for eight hours every day for two weeks. All trainees were required to live in dormitories together as a group so we could sleep, eat, breathe, and drink corrections. There were about fifty trainees going through the academy at the same time. We were an interesting bunch with about half of the group being young guys like me looking for their first real job and the other half being forty-something military or law enforcement retirees wanting to pursue a new career. There were no women in my academy class. Women at the time could be found in support positions that were primarily clerical, but would not play a direct contact role in male corrections in Texas until 1984 (US Department of Justice, 1991).
citizen, having a high school diploma or GED, and not having any felony, drug-related, or domestic violence convictions. Physical demands included standing for most of your shift, climbing stairs and ladders, and running for an extended period of time. You also needed to have enough strength to be able to physically manage an aggressive inmate and carry a body over a distance if needed. Our duties as correctional officers were to count, supervise, and transport inmates, respond to emergencies, administer first aid, apply restraint techniques during violence situations, search for contraband in the environment as well as utilizing pat and strip searches, and applying deadly force when