Topic: Security Central / Officer shakedowns

Everybody is subject to shake down, we use a randamizer search button all staff must push upon entry into the prison. You get red, you get searched. All bags go through the xray machine regardless whether you hit red or not. I hate dirty staff, puts everyone at risk.

Topic: The Club House / Military Veterans to CO

In Washington state once you get perminate status (18 months about) you will get up to five years seniority when it comes to layoffs. I am retired mil, you will like the prison/correctional enviornment. Depending where you are located Corrections jobs are available. There is plenty of them in Washington State

Topic: The Club House / Pay for experience

So I am sitting here looking at the job postings for the corrections field. By and large most or all of us have come across our correctional education on the job day in and day out. No matter how many degree’s you have or what you have your degree in, it cannot teach you how to be a correctional profession, it cannot teach you how to deal with the offender, or to use your tongue wisely or effectively in getting the offenders/convicts/inmates to comply with your directives or rules.

Now you may be wondering where I am going with this? Well here it is, we as a correctional professional do not ourselves recognize the experience and training that we all have earned on the job. I am seeking new horizons with different correctional agencies and they all want to start me at the bottom of the pay scale like a nube off of the street. I was accepted with the FBofP but they wanted to start me as a GS5, this is after 14 years as correctional professional and ten of those years as a correctional supervisor. I could not take the 15 thousand year drop in pay. So I had to turn them down, I then looked elsewhere to other agencies and other states and it is the same thing where ever I go.

We are our own worst enemy in this regards. Like other professions we should pay depending on qualifications not time in that particular agency. What do you all think, sound off, tell me if I am off base or if you have had similar experiences.

Topic: A Broader View / the economy and corrections

In Washington, three stand alone minimums will be closed, have of one prison and one wing of another for this year. Last year we closed four units in various different prisons. There has been about a hundred and forty probation jobs cut with more to come. Now they are talking about furloughs on top of that. Times are tough for sure