Learning about My Career Path
Discuss about the Effectively Training Community Supervision Officer.
After taking this course, I have come to learn the career path I want to make in the future. At first, I just wanted to be a cop because I thought to ride in a cop car and to set off the alarm seemed fun, but after some of the classes, I developed a need in wanting to help our society. I, therefore, decided to become a corrections officer. I was motivated to do this after the session we learned in the class where most criminals end up in and out of jail throughout the rest of their life (Schaefer, 2018). With this, I was motivated to make a change in the prisons. I want to ensure that all the people that come under my jurisdiction once I am a corrections officer will leave the prison as better versions of themselves.
My goal of becoming a corrections officer is to manage my detainees in a proper manner that will encourage them to be better people. I plan to treat my detainees as people and not as objects or criminals as they are. Throughout the course, I came to learn that most criminals are treated like animals because the rest of the world views them as the evil people in the society. However, I have come to learn that as humans, we are prone to making mistakes and we should not let our mistakes define who we are. With this, I plan to ensure that my detainees will be treated with humility and respect until the time of their release (Ricks & Eno Louden, 2015).
My primary goal is to take a course in counseling and psychology. With this, I will be able to counsel my inmates throughout their stay in prison. I want to do this so that I know my inmates on a personal level and understand where they are coming from. This I believe will help me in molding them to become better and also give them life lessons on how to live a life away from crime.
I plan to enter a correctional officer training program after accomplishing my degree. A degree will help me in becoming a correctional officer in a federal prison which is where I want to be posted. After the training, I plan to do an on job training as well to gain more experience in handling inmates. I want to put maximum effort into helping our country, and therefore I do not mind going the extra mile (Lane, 2017).
Treating Detainees with Humility and Respect
I believe that people can change and that motivated me more to become a corrections officer. Good morals and values can be learned with time, and I think that a person with bad morals and values can be taught the good ones (Miller, 2016). I value people who want to make a change in their life and therefore when am a corrections officer and encounter an inmate that wants to change; then I will do my best to ensure that they do.
I believe that the culture we live in nowadays promotes a lot of criminal activity and if we want to change this, then we also have to change our culture. Nowadays people believe in wealth and marital possessions, and I think that this culture is what promotes criminal activities. This causes small crimes like robbing a store or stealing from someone’s home. I plan to primarily work with people that commit minor crimes for money to change them (Matthews & Feagans, 2015). I plan to do this through job employment. We have adopted the culture of not employing people with a criminal past, and this motivates them to steal to get money. I believe that we need to create jobs for people with a criminal background so that they can learn work ethics and the value of working hard.
I believe that with a strong work ethic and hard work they will change for the better. Good work ethics motivates a person to wake up every day and go out and look for money. This way one learns how to fend for themselves without depending on others. Throughout the coursework, I discovered that most criminals have never worked a day in their life and therefore, do not have a strong work ethic. This causes them to involve in criminal activities so that they can eat and also dress. This I believe can be changed if there are employment opportunities for them (Reid, 2015).
My outlook on the future is that as a community, we change the way we think or do things because this affects other people be it negative or positive. We need to be more willing to help people involved in crime and have an open mind that they can change.
My learning experience throughout the course has been great. I highly value the guest lecturers because they were one of the things that prompted me to pursue a career in corrections. I remember one guest lecture that talked about how we exclude criminals from our communities and how it takes a toll on them mentally and physically (Clear, Reisig & Cole, 2018). This particular lecture gave me empathy for criminals because I as well was a victim of excluding the criminals. From that lecture, I decided that I wanted to make a change in my community and thus the idea of becoming a corrections officer.
Counseling Inmates for Rehabilitation
The classes were also, and I learned a lot. Interacting with other students was my favorite part of the lectures. Especially times when the lecturer gave us group discussions and group assignments. I learned a lot from the group sessions by interacting with the others (Forsyth, 2018). I was able to learn people’s views on crime and how it affects our community and also their values and beliefs. I found that at the end of the group tasks I had acquired a massive amount of knowledge, and most of the stereotypes I had on criminals had vanished. Also, the group work taught me the importance of working together as a team and how to develop good group dynamics (Kratcoski, 2017).
I was also able to attend some workshops, and I was intrigued by them. I did not learn much from them, but I loved the experience of visiting the workshops. One workshop I attended that I liked was in prisons and how they maintain law and order among the inmates. At some point, I was a bit frightened by how the inmates can get rowdy, but the person in charge of the workshop assured me that with adequate training I would be ok and able to handle the inmates.
During my assessment of the course, I was able to learn a lot. I learned how to write a cover letter and also a resume. My lecturer was very helpful in the process especially in writing the resume since I did not know where to begin or where to end. In the end, I was delighted with how my CV and my resume came out and was confident that I would achieve my goal of becoming a corrections officer.
Writing my cover letter was the natural part because this I was able to do on my own. I was able to write my experiences and the skills that I had acquired over the coursework. I also included how I was good at teamwork and loved working in a group because it maximized our output (Wilcox & Gialopsos, 2015).
I also loved writing the reflections because I was able to note down the key factors that I learned from every week’s lesson. Writing the reflections helped me in laying down my goals and objectives and my plan for the future.
I have come to build a strong resilience to the idea of working with inmates that are tough in federal prisons. During the workshops, I almost backed down on being a corrections officer because of what I heard about inmates. However, the person in charge of the workmates assured me that with training I would be able to handle them. Therefore I have confidence that I can still present change in the prisons (Downes, Rock & McLaughlin, 2016).
Training to Become a Federal Prison Officer
Also at first when carrying out the group tasks, there were conflicts among team members due to differences in opinion and even values and beliefs. I was able to recover from this situation by talking to the team member that I conflicted with and also encouraging others to do the same. We managed to surpass this, and onwards we were able to solve tough situations quickly so that we can continue working together as a group.
After the coursework, I have decided to take care of myself in terms of health and wellbeing. To promote change in prisons, I need to be physically able to do so. Also, the training that I am supposed to take for a correctional officer requires a person that is healthy so that they can be able to carry out the day to day activities. One is also expected to take a psychological exam before being accepted to the training, and thus I need to ensure that I am of sound mind (Trounson & Pfeifer, 2017).
This I will do by always being positive and avoiding a negative situation. I also plan to begin doing some meditation to help me relax and have a more positive outlook on life. This will help me in having a positive mind frame that everyone can change so that I can be able to help the inmates that I will be working with in the future. I intend to manage these elements in my career by always eating healthy, exercising every day before going to work and also meditating each day after work (Walmsley, 2015). Meditation after work will help me relax especially after having a bad day, and it will keep me motivated to go to work the following day. I intend to keep a sound mind throughout my career and to stay healthy and keep fit as well.
I learned a lot from the lectures and found them to be helpful in answering questions that I did not know the answer to. The lectures were my way of exploring the world of criminal activities, and before every lecture, I always researched the topic that we were going to discuss. This I found helpful because during the lectures I was able to follow what was being said because I had an idea of the topic.
During the lecture, I was able to learn about the organizational structures that are involved in crime department. I was able to learn about the police department, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Central Intelligence Agency and their work in helping to solve criminal activities. I also learned how these organizations worked together to solve a crime without being in constant conflict. I especially had more interest in the FBI, and I was intrigued by the activities they carried out daily. The organizations motivated me more to pursue a career as a corrections officer (Ferrell, 2017).
Changing Criminal Activities through Employment Opportunities
Also in my lectures, I was able to learn about communication and how to develop better communication skills. I discovered that communication differs depending on the audience and in my career path my audience would be inmates. I gained skills in how to communicate with them effectively if I wanted to mold them to become better persons. I would use a firm and calm approach to my communication and always make eye contact and speak to them on a personal level. I also learned how to be accountable for my actions. In cases where I did wrong, for instance, the conflict with my team members, I was able to take responsibility and also offer a solution to the problem to avoid future situations happening (Chadwick, Dewolf & Serin, 2015).
I also learned about the rules and laws that are there for crime and criminal activities. I was able to learn what was categorized as a crime by the state and the punishments that followed for committing a crime such as doing time or doing community service (Cramer et al., 2017). In conclusion, I have learned a lot through the coursework and intend on becoming a corrections officer to install change in the criminal offenders.
References
Cramer, R. J., Laxton, K. L., Chandler, J. F., Kehn, A., Bate, B. P., & Clark, J. W. (2017). Political Identity, Type of Victim, and Hate Crime?Related Beliefs as Predictors of Views Concerning Hate Crime Penalty Enhancement Laws. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 17(1), 262-285.
Clear, T. R., Reisig, M. D., & Cole, G. F. (2018). American corrections. Cengage Learning.
Chadwick, N., Dewolf, A., & Serin, R. (2015). Effectively training community supervision officers: A meta-analytic review of the impact on offender outcome. Criminal justice and behavior, 42(10), 977-989.
Downes, D., Rock, P., & McLaughlin, E. (2016). Understanding deviance: a guide to the sociology of crime and rule-breaking. Oxford University Press.
Ferrell, J. (2017). Boredom, crime, and criminology. In Cultural Criminology (pp. 179-194). Routledge.
Forsyth, D. R. (2018). Group dynamics. Cengage Learning.
Kratcoski, P. C. (2017). Continuity and Change in the Roles of Correctional Personnel. In Correctional Counseling and Treatment (pp. 53-72). Springer, Cham.
Lane, C. (2017). A different kind of sorority. Social Work with Groups, 40(1-2), 65-68.
Matthews, H. A., & Feagans, D. (2015). Massachusetts Department of Correction Three-Year Recidivism Study: A Descriptive Analysis of the January-July 2011 Releases and Correctional Recovery Academy Participation. Massachusetts Department of Correction, Research and Planning Division.
Miller, K. B. (2016). A Study of Modernized Personnel Training in Corrections: An Assessment of the Correctional Officer Pre-Service Training in Texas.
Reid, S. T. (2015). Crime and criminology. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Ricks, E. P., & Eno Louden, J. (2015). The relationship between officer orientation and supervision strategies in community corrections. Law and human behavior, 39(2), 130.
Schaefer, L. (2018). Correcting the “correctional” component of the corrections officer role: How offender custodians can contribute to rehabilitation and reintegration. Corrections, 3(1), 38-55.
Trounson, J., & Pfeifer, J. E. (2017). Corrections officer wellbeing: Training challenges and opportunities. Practice: The New Zealand Corrections Journal, 5(1), 22-28.
Walmsley, A. (2015). Physical Readiness Assessment and staff resilience. Practice: The New Zealand CorrectionsJournal, 3(1), 1-5.
Wilcox, P., & Gialopsos, B. M. (2015). Crime-event criminology: an overview.
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