How To Become A Prison Officer

Hello I'm Sherridan Hughes. I'm a career consultant with career analysts. I'm going to talk to you today about how to get into various careers.

The five sector stodial duties, prison officers maybe required to accompany inmates to health appointments or hospitals or to dental appointments or potentially to court. They're responsible for the safety not only of the people around but also the offender themselves. They need to be very aware that anything could happen a) somebody could be trying to escape b) someone else could attack that person, so they need to motivate the prisoners to behave in a way which will be keep by themselves and others around them safe.

Obviously this is going to involve some level of authority some personal skills, diplomacy, tact, ability to keep situations calm and some understanding of empathy where the prisoner is coming from. But also, some, perhaps the ability to restrain in some situations as well. So for the selection there are formal qualifications, the prison officers do have to pass an entrance test and they have to be competent in English and mathematics.

They also need to pass a medical and a fitness program. There is a graduate management training program which is the fast track and for the rest there is much more in depth selection procedure with only about 20 to 25 people actually are recruited each year. And for that there is a little bit of civil service, assessment centers, role-play, psychometrics, a little bit of substantial interviews, etc.

so it's quite, on that fast track, you will touch big petitions of responsibility very quickly. Clearly the prison officer isn't there, the view of a prison officer is not someone wild and nasty and enjoyingly kind of making people suffer. But clearly what they're there to do is rehabilitate and not to punish.

So the more you change people's thinking behavior, the better. Prison officers need to be UK or common ground citizen, nationals from Norway, Lichtenstein or Switzerland. They can't be bankrupt and they musn't again belong to racist organizations.

So that's how to become a prison officer. .