and grateful
Many people shared warnings with me before starting this job. It’s dangerous. Don’t do it. It’s a predatory environment. Are you sure you want to work there?
I said yes to the job…..and then I researched it. Perhaps naive to think, go for it! And everything will be ok. It’s a high profile state prison–if bad things happened to staff, the media would be all over it, right?
These warnings, while appreciated, only made me more fearful. Maybe I had made the wrong decision. Do I really need to work there?
To be honest, I was more concerned that the one set of individuals who were supposed to keep me safe, would not have my back. I had read on a nurses blog about one experience of working in a prison, and the officers had worked in cahoots with the incarcerated individuals to corner her.
This was my true fear when starting this job. That my protectors would be my perpetrators.
Well, I can confidently say, that has not been the case. At least at the prison that I work at. And at least with the custody officers that assist on the medical floors. They most definitely have our backs. I can’t speak for those in the housing units or the Adjustment Center (“the hole”), who always appear a bit more gruff (understandably so). Fortunately, I come into contact with them very infrequently.
On more than one account, the custody officers (male and female) have warned me about a particular individual before I see them–this is in regards to the former “death row” individuals who area escorted to the PT office in restraints or who we see on the hospital floor in their cells.
Most often, before seeing them, I don’t have all their criminal history and most certainly don’t have all their offenses against staff. So when an officer gives me the scoop, I’m listening. The previous offenses have normally been against custody officers, and not medical staff. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t lash past me to get to one of them.
This pre-visit scoop gives me time to decide if I’m going to have their restraints removed or not, or maybe just one. And to plan out the room, so I can keep myself arms length distance from them or have a clear path to the door. And it alerts me that I have to keep eyes on at all times.
Some custody are out the door when their shift is done. A few of the officers will come around when the afternoon is winding down and the halls are less filled with custody, just to ask if everything is ok.
And I’m so grateful. My biggest fear was laid to rest after a few weeks there.
*just to note, I’ll be leaving out the name of the institution that I work at. It’s a state prison in California for reference. Images are not from the prison as no devices are allowed in.
Prison PT 
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