Bob Walsh
Stockton, CA
Male, 60
I worked for the California state system, starting as a Correctional Officer and retiring as a Lieutenant in 2005. I now write for the PacoVilla blog which is concerned with what could broadly be called The Correctional System.
I don't quite follow your question. Visitors must be approved to visit inmates. Background checks are done on visitors, at least in California. The visitor obtains a visiting form, usually by mail from the inmate. The visitor fills it out and returns it and it is processed. The visitor is approved (or denied). If I remember correctly if the visitor is approved the prison notifies the inmate and it is up to him to notify the visitor. If they are denied the prison notifies the visitor directly.
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That depends on why you don't think you will be good at it. The skill set to do the job can be developed with no problem as long as you have average intelligence and a decent educational backgrounds. You do have to be able to read (things like job descriptions and operational procedures are important, and you have to be able to read them to follow them). Also some people just do not like the environment, being physically locked into a closed-up building really bothers some people. Also some people really don't want to deal with the shift work. As long as these are not issues for you I would be inclined to give it a go. If it turns out that you don't like it you can walk away, its not like the Army and you are in for three years whether you like it or not.
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Back when i was working, it usually ran three shifts. If they were absolutely positive the guy had something it could run as long as nine shifts. That was unusual, it gets expensive.
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In my experience, neutral. Druggies still use in prison. Drugs are easy to get in prison. They are about 4X more expensive than on the street, but are still easy to get. A recent mainstream news report just released a report on that subject in fact. It said that, when tested in June of last year, 23% of the prisoners tested came up positive for illegal drugs and 30% of the sample refused to be tested, even though the sampling was anonymous and there was no way to connect the samples back to an individual person.
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Navy Officer (Former)
Just how educated is the typical US military serviceman?
Nightclub Promoter
Is bottle service worth the money, or is it a total scam?
Flight Attendant
How do you handle belligerent passengers?
Couldn't really say. I have never been a street cop. It comes up fairly often in the prison setting, usually with female cops making the complaint, but we don't have to pull information out of the complainant under those circumstances.
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Like I said, I have never been a street cop. I suppose it might make a difference if they thought you were lying, or if they wanted to tell how solid a witness you were. Maybe he is a confirmed left-hand weenie wacker and if you say he was using his right that would tend to indicate you were lying. I very honestly don't know the answer.
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In days gone by sexual offenders were treated very badly by most of the population. There are now so many of them that the only ones who have a very hard time are child molesters (baby rapers). Anybody can request PC for pretty much any reason. They may, or may not, get it. There are a couple of housing units around the state that house only sex offenders, they mostly get along with each other. PC is mostly called "special needs" now days. The department often changes labels to pretend problems no longer exist. The main problem with PC is that they can not mix freely with GP prisoners. Most of them like it just fine that way. Other than that they have the same privileges as other inmates with the exception of some jobs, depending on the nature of their offense and the nature of the job. (This is a bit of an oversimplification. Custody classification and job assignment regulations is actually fairly complex and my knowledge base is stale.)
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