Blog #16

Prison jobs are relatively unattractive to today’s society. This lack of demand for the work makes these positions fairly easy to obtain. Prison systems only require a candidate to be 21 years old, have graduated from high school, and have no felony convictions. In fact only 1 percent of children surveyed chose “Prison Guard” as an occupation. These types of correctional jobs just aren’t sought after. The average corrections officer starts off making $23,000.00 a year, which is an income considered to be below the poverty line. And the average income of a Corrections officer with experience is only $30,524.00. These low income jobs have accelerated change within the working demographic brining more female, African-American, and Hispanic employees. There are similarities and differences when comparing men and women’s career paths within the corrections field. For instance, most of the people Britton surveyed indicated that they are not in the position in which they aspired to be (P 80). No one interviewed grew up with the pursuit of working within the prison system. The individuals surveyed usually bounced back and forth between different jobs before they landed work in the prison system. That is, both men and women basically “drifted” into these jobs.

The paths to prison work for men and women couldn’t be more different. For men 44% come from some sort of military occupation and training, while only 7% of women come from a similar field. For women the most common type of previous employment comes from clerical work. 37% of these women surveyed worked as secretaries and clerks. Conversely no man reported these types of clerical jobs prior to prison work. The basic summarization of past work in men comes from military experience, while women come from entirely different fields. I found it quite interesting to read about different career paths by which women and men take when finally obtaining these types of jobs.

The motivations seem to be quite similar amongst men and women when taking these types of jobs as well. Usually pay and benefits make more than enough sense for candidates to choose these positions. Vacations, medical benefits, and a salary make more the enough sense for applicants given the scarce amount of work that most of the prison towns have available. I don’t believe prison work is something I could ever do, but I commend those who have these dangerous jobs.