blog 16

No one in Britton’s study said that they grew up wanting to be a correctional officer. Most of the men were in the service before they became correctional officers. Once the men got out of the service, they saw becoming a corrections officer as the logical next step. The men did express that they wanted to do something in law enforcement, like be a police officer, when they were children. Some of the women did say that they wanted to be police officers when they were children. Most of the women were working in clerical positions before becoming a correctional officer. A few of the women said they worked as baby sitters previously. They did not see how the two would be connected, but now realize that they are. They often compare being a correctional officer to being a baby sitter. Criminal justice and criminology majors are very popular as undergraduate majors at universities. Many people find out they are interested in corrections by taking a class about it and then decide that is the field they are interested in. Social networking played a role in some of the women’s progression into becoming a correctional officer. For example, one woman said that she was working as a secretary in corrections administration and was asked if she would like to work some overtime as an officer. She realized that the pay was better and that she actually enjoyed the work so she became a corrections officer full time. One woman was a manager at a retail store. She was looking for a different job and was told by a customer, a corrections officer, that the prison was hiring. The woman looked into it further and found that the pay was much better. So, she did her “stuff and got in.”