By Patrick Cassidy
Cape Cod Times
BOURNE — Nathan Pimental and LisaAnn Carroll smile a lot when they talk about their new jobs.
“It’s great,” Pimental said during the swing shift a few weeks after starting work as a correctional officer at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility.
Around him in A Pod in House 1 (there are three houses containing 12 pods capable of holding 12 to 72 inmates each), 48 men were locked behind closed doors on two levels, some pressing their faces against the glass as they waited for dinner. A Pod is two levels and typically set aside as the first stop to orient incoming defendants or sentenced inmates.
“My toilet’s annihilated,” an inmate called out.
Otherwise the large triangular-shaped space was clean and quiet. A small group of male inmates who work in the unit were in a day room, busy playing cards and chatting. In the center of the triangle were tables and to the side of the correctional officers station was a square recreation area. Showers and a stainless steel sink on the wall were the only other notable fixtures.
Stationed on the other side of the facility in J Pod — set aside for working inmates — Carroll watched over a similar scene.
“I had wanted to be in law enforcement for as long as I can remember,” she said.
A small radio played at her station and muted televisions hung at various angles above empty tables in the center of the room.
Carroll said she previously worked for a plumbing company doing bookkeeping and studied psychology, equine business management and criminal justice.
“I wanted to be a mounted statie,” she said. “They don’t have them anymore.”
The 31-year-old West Dennis resident also wanted to stay on Cape Cod.
“Why would I want to leave paradise?” she said as she kept her eyes moving around the room.
Inmates were using sign language from their cells to talk to each other, something Carroll said she was too new to understand yet. One inmate called out for a taco.
“Welcome to jail. No tacos,” Carroll said with a laugh.
Maybe it doesn’t sound exactly glamorous, but for Pimental, Carroll and 24 other people, the job of being a correctional officer was worth jumping through a few hoops.
“It’s not an annual process,” Special Sheriff Jeffrey Perry said about the spurts of hiring. “In the last four years we’ve done this three times.”
The optimum number of sworn correctional officers to operate the facility safely 24 hours a day is 205 out of 321 total employees, he said.
Fewer, and the overtime costs start to add up; more, and the facility is overstaffed.
“We have a number that works for us,” Perry said.
When that number starts to dip, the recruitment process begins.
Previously the process consisted of filling out an application and seeing who gets hired. Recently, Sheriff James Cummings implemented a hiring process more akin to how state police are hired, Perry said.
It starts with a basic written intelligence test, usually taken by an average of 250 recruits. About 80 percent of those people pass, Perry said.
Then comes a physical fitness test that uses the Cooper military standards for sit-ups, push-ups and running, based on age.
Despite having more than a month to prepare, typically less than 50 percent of the remaining applicants pass the physical fitness test, Perry said.
“It’s dreadfully disappointing,” he said.
Although there is no psychological test, there has been talk of one among Massachusetts sheriffs’ offices, Perry said.
This time around, after interviews there were 40 to 45 people who went through background checks that included interviews with neighbors, checking employers and other references, and investigating for any criminal records, as well as the records of the people who live with them, Perry said.
In the end, only 32 were submitted to Cummings for his approval, Perry said.
“We’re looking for career-minded people,” he said.
About 20 percent of that figure usually drop out during the 11-week academy, Perry said.
The need for new recruits crops up when there have been too many retirements, resignations or people are let go for other reasons, Perry said.
Correctional officers and their superiors are not immune to bad behavior and some have lost their jobs or been disciplined over the years for being arrested, misusing equipment or engaging in other inappropriate behavior. Currently a former correctional officer is being investigated for allegedly having sex with an inmate.
Correctional officers are part of a union and have the right to progressive discipline and arbitration.
There are some common themes in who is hired — criminal justice degrees, public safety backgrounds and veterans, for example — but there’s no single stereotype for a typical employee, Perry said. About 15 percent of current employees have a military background.
“The last couple of years we’ve been trying to recruit specifically veterans,” Perry said.
The average age of the most recent recruiting class is 26½, sheriff’s office spokesman Roy Lyons said.
Besides the fact that a correctional officer doesn’t carry a weapon, the job is different from being a police officer because police have the chance to deal not only with the negative but also the positive aspects of serving the community, Perry said.
“They also have some mental downtime when they’re in the cruiser,” said Perry, a former police officer.
Conversely, correctional officers must always be on alert because inmates are trying to come up with ways to “get over” on them 24/7, he said.
In F Pod — the isolation unit where inmates go when they misbehave in jail — academy drill instructor Patrick Matthews seemed entirely comfortable watching over a darker, smaller and noisier version of the larger pods.
“I’m a teacher by trade,” said Matthews, a martial arts instructor in his other life.
Matthews didn’t seem fazed by the chatter around him, which included discussion of various kinds of food as well as “invading cockroaches” and “extraterrestrials.”
He taught his first correctional officer academy this year and said it was rewarding to see the recruits’ progress.
“You never know what you’re going to get,” he said as inmates shouted at each other from their cells. “They were all new to me.”
But the class quickly bonded.
“By the end of the first week they had one thing in common: They all disliked me,” he said. “By the eleventh week, I think they knew where I was coming from.”
The group also picked each other up when they fell down, he said.
Prior to their shift, Pimental and Carroll sat comfortably among their fellow correctional officers at roll call.
Sgt. Susan Bergquist told them there were 388 inmates counted in the facility, one had gone to court and another had cut his finger in the kitchen.
There were announcements about employee awards, a problem with the computer system and a new total of more than $300 collected for the Best Buddies charity.
A short time later at the station, Pimental said it was the Bourne facility’s reputation, the job’s benefits and the similarities to the military that convinced him to try out. A New Bedford resident, the 28-year-old is a Navy veteran and father of three.
“I like being in uniform,” he said. “I like the rank structure.”
But the job is as much social work as enforcement, he said.
“It’s a people job,” he said. “I think the majority of what we’re doing is really talking.”
Listening is also important, Carroll said.
“Honestly it’s a whole bunch of different things,” she said about her reasons for becoming a correctional officer. “Talking to them, hearing their stories, what’s transpired.”
Interpersonal skills are an important part of the job, but there’s a clear line that can’t be crossed, she said.
“I wouldn’t go up and call them by their first name,” she said.
Being a woman watching over male prisoners hasn’t been a problem, she said.
While women are more likely to reach out to each other, the guys are more likely to get in a fight when they’re feeling emotional, she said.
Women inmates “care for each other, too,” she said, noting that the women would make sure a disabled inmate has her food tray in front of her when she sits down.
During a check of the cells, Carroll chatted with a few inmates, including one who commented on the photographer following her around.
“I’m famous, what can I say?” she said.
She asked other inmates how they were doing, told one of them he was lying about something and told others she was doing well.
She then returned to her station and entered the number of inmates she had counted.
“We’re making sure we have living, breathing flesh,” she said.