County prison employment

[OTII]

Hello all. I really would like to become a correctional officer in a local prison, then maybe move into law enforcement. Im 24 yrs old, but I think the only thing stopping me is that I have a misdemeanor theft of lost property charge on my record from two years ago. I really do not know how to go about this. If I could work for a prison, I would honor the job like no other and I would do my best in everything there. I have never taken any drugs, and I rarely drink. I am in shape and im somewhat beefy (not fat).

If you guys can give me any tips at all that would help me get employed there, that would be great. Maybe something that prisons might look for in a candidate? Thank you.

[Hockey9019]

Where you live?

[Piggy]

I'll guess Alabama.

[OTII]

I live in Ohio.

...pretty far from Alabama.

[PRIME EVIL]

I live in Ohio.

...pretty far from Alabama.

uh, yeah

[sweamco]

Since you are saying that you want to work for county jail I am assuming that you are thinking about applying to a Sheriffs office. Just as a side note, Prisons are run by the state (Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections in your case) or the Feds, which would be the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which I believe is a part of the Justice department.

Jails are run by the sheriff in whichever county you are. Each county will have different requirements so your best bet would be to check with the specific department that you are interested in. Since you mention that you are interested in Law Enforcement you probably want to see what qualifications they have for their patrol deputies. In general you will find that any kind of patrol job (as a deputy or police officer) will be more competative and harder to get into as opposed to detention deputy in the jail or a corrections officer in state DOC. A deviance to this might be BOP as they tend to have somewhat higher standards than many state/municipal agencies.

No matter what you do, be honest about you past. We had a person who lied in her interview process 4 years ago. This was discovered last year and she was fired on the spot. Honesty is paramount when applying for any job within the criminal justice system.

Good luck