By C1 Staff
There’s no question about it – correctional officers have a stressful job, if not one of the most stressful jobs in America. You can go from patrolling a pod and overseeing seemingly complacent inmates to suddenly being attacked on a moment’s notice, without warning. You work holidays and days off, spend “free time” trying to get some sleep and decompress from the horrible things you see behind the walls, get cursed at, spit on, and verbally abused by inmates that you’re charged with protecting, all for little pay – and that could just be Monday.
So who really wants to be a correctional officer? Well, correctional officers. We asked our readers what they would do if they couldn’t be a correctional officer, but the majority of you had a hard time imagining that option, because corrections isn’t just what you do. It’s who you are.
Hundreds of Corrections1 readers were asked if they would do it all over, would they choose to become a correctional officer again? More than 60 percent confirmed there was no other job for them.
But for those who were forced to choose what’s next, whether due to injury, the politics of the job or from burnout, here’s what they would have picked:
A little over a fourth of respondents would choose a career in the military, but results were spread fairly evenly across the board.
Many correctional officers already double as volunteer firefighters or EMTs in their towns, so it’s no surprise that many would choose to be a first responder if they couldn’t be a CO.
Unfortunately, less than four percent of officers were less than willing to show off their culinary skills, but with the reputation prison food has, maybe that’s for the best.