correctional officer

licensed vocational nurse

senior correction officer

registered nurse

deputy sheriff

Travis County Sheriff

This place has many, many, paths and opportunities to climb the career ladder. If you look around, you'll be able to find some type of job within the county you'll eventually enjoy doing. Now because it is a law enforcement agency, it does have a much higher standard to live up to, which is to be expected of an officer. 

You deal with inmates all day, keeping an eye on them to ensure they are safe, secure, and not causing too much trouble. Depending on where you work, you could be placed directly in the housing area, which isn't that bad. Your co-workers have your back when problems arise. The most important thing to do here is to be you but the most professional you you can be. This job is definitely not for everyone.

The health benefits are amazing compared to most other places. They cover just about everything you can think of. The starting pay is at or around $15 per hr with the potential to increase that by as much as $5 dollars within the first few years. And all you need is a clean record and a high school diploma or equivalent. 

In short, if you can deal with the high standards of being an officer and the sometimes overly negative environment the inmates and management create, you've got a great career for you and the coverage of pay and healthcare for your family.

The Travis County Sheriff's Office is a broken culture fueled by fear. Fear of liability, controversy, and risk. Officers and deputies are disciplined using an arbitrary system that lacks transparency. And I believe that this fear-based mentality fuels self-interest and inhibits teamwork because everyone is out to protect themselves from this arbitrary system. Minor policy violations are treated as misconduct, and for a select few allegations of misconduct are treated as minor policy violations. This is not how to create an effective law enforcement or corrections culture (in fact I think it breeds a form of misconduct- covering up mistakes). 

What happened? Loooong story, but in short - the previous Sheriff, appointed administrators that killed morale and refused to take responsibility for improving it. And the current Sheriff, has not taken an interest in improving the morale (which makes things worse). If you work for another agency don't come here...unless it's worse.

Working in a correctional setting allows me to experience many different chronic health conditions. I also have extensive knowledge in caring for patients addicted to drugs and alcohol. I have experience with caring for patients with delirium tremens. Keeping patients safe is a priority. I am able to assess and make quick and effective decisions. I work closely with physicans. I also have experience in assessing patients with multiple mental health illness. I manage my time well. I have great interpersonal and team building skills. I enjoy continuity of care I give to patients that are booked into jail. I also enjoy making a difference in patients that do not have health insurance. A large percentage of jail population is the homeless and mentally ill patients. I am able to make a positive change in their lives. The hard part of my job is dealing with uncooperative patients. When initally booked in jail some patients are angry and upset about arrest. This can sometimes make assessing difficult.

I wish they would take employee complaints seriously, especially when there is high turnover in a certain department. It’s frustrating feeling like you're not being heard.  I found it difficult to adjust to law enforcement terminology even though my position was in the medical field . I think that employees that have been in this environment for many years should really be  more considerate of this and educate new employees rather than condescending. Not everyone knows the “Lingo” (example: Inmates not Patients, or released vs discharged, Keep on person vs  Non-keep on person meds) these are  NOT terms used outside of corrections . I also think it would be beneficial for the county to come up with a way to consolidate multiple computer programs into one user friendly system. It’s annoying having to go into 3 sometimes 4 different programs to find needed information.

Although I had my fair share of scraps with this job, it was a rewarding experience.  The people were great for the most part, but idealistically, the culture falls short of the moderate line, and leans high and heavy into blind conservative line of thinking. Staffing is severely low, causing heavy overtime, and recruitment looks bleak.  Management is great in sparse areas, but most are tough to level with, and demand more from you than they are willing to give.  There is little sympathy if you have a family, and getting time off is a losing battle; often times you must put in at least 4 months in advance to be approved. Benefits are being cut soon, retirement plans are changing for the worst, and pay is severely inadequate unless you're a supervisor.  But hey, as long as there's criminals, your job is secure, so be grateful.  At least that's what management says.

I am responsible for the safety and security of Inmate subjects as well as staff, co-workers and visitors in a confined area.
I must be able to communicate clearly and concisely to all individuals having business within a secured work environment, along with knowing privacy issues exist with legal and health concerns of those individuals housed in the facility. 

I must be a team player and work with others to be successful in my position, and I need to be able to problem solve in a quick and efficient manner.

The hardest part of my job is knowing that anything can happen at a moment's notice, and that I have no way of knowing when an emergency can happen.

The most enjoyable aspect of my job is knowing that individuals have different needs, but everyone is treated equally and without bias.

Since I started with the county about 2 years and a half ago, I have had more incompetent managers/supervisors than competent. I work for the Sheriff's department within corrections currently and the pay is ok, benefits are good, but I 100% wished I worked somewhere else. Bad hours and days off, at the whim of higher ups on if you're doing overtime that day or not and usually don't know until last minute. The county as a whole is reactive and not proactive and waits for things to go wrong before looking how to do things better or try to solve any problems. I would not recommend working for the Sheriff's department within corrections at all. Maybe for administration or other departments within the county are not that bad. 

As RN management does not support you when a decision is made.  I had no orientation handout until I accidently was shown one by another fairly new nurse 5 months into my and then I was made to feel as if i was incompetent for bring it up.  Of course they expect you to know all the institutional policies.  Goodness if you disagree with anyone one who's been there since Moses parted the Red Sea.  You will get a long great with everyone - including management if you do exactly what you are told as you are told and do not question anyone.  Basically keep your mouth shut, take and say thank you. 

Job satisfaction will, likely, depend upon your position and expectations. I worked as a jailer a LONG time ago. Back then it was great. I have no idea what it would be like now. I left TSCO after 20 years as a Patrol Deputy. I, thoroughly, enjoyed my time as a Deputy. I was lucky in that for a vast majority of that time I had excellent supervisors.  Overall, I thought the Sheriff's Office was very ethical, the Deputies were excellent, and I had very little issues working with any of them. This is important when working as an LEO as knowing you can rely on your co-workers to be there for you and be ethical and calm in stressful situations is imperative.

When I started working for Travis County Sheriff Dept. it was a place where we all (Sgts, Lts, Cmds) got along great. As people started moving up the chain, things began to change for the worse. SECURITY FOR THE EMPLOYEES, AND INMATES, were at a hight standard at first. As time started passing, less and less Security for the employee started being implemented. We were in charge of up to 60 inmates to 1 officer. The added a rover officer but he was always being taken out of the main units for other jobs. The ratio should have been 1 officer to 48 inmates. Myself and other officers have gotten hurt due to the set up and not having 2 officers on post. 

I retired Jan 31, 2016

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Correctional officer 1 salary reported	$38,920 per year
Licensed vocational nurse 2 salaries reported	$23.93 per hour
Senior correction officer 3 salaries reported	$55,000 per year
Registered nurse 3 salaries reported	$74,558 per year
Deputy sheriff 3 salaries reported	$71,333 per year

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