licensed practical nurse

registered nurse

behavioral health professional

behavioral specialist

safety watch

YesCare

I worked 7p to 7a - i prefer eveings or nights so the hours wera a perfect for me. typical night began with pulling charts to chart PPD results, pulling charts for sick call that were picked up day shift, pulling medications for 6 wings and dorms, while on med pass, picked up sick call request, checked PPDs, answered inmate medical questions re: sick call, requirements for work, or other general information, also did withdrawal assessments, triaged sick calls and saw those inmates who needed to be seen before am sick call. After med pass I pulled all charts with sick call request, prepared follow up and sick call list for the following morrning. Female inmates were required to be tested for pregnancy and I assisted with those test and documentation, Assessed and evaluated inmates brought in to clinic with urgent request, responded to all codes, and drew all ordered labs for next morning. I taught myself how to do lab draws after Charge Nurse resigned and new Charge Nurse could no draw labs. I maintained MARs and Medical records. I learned to treat all inmates the same and their charges were not to bias me.
The hardest part of the job was keeping on schedule as there were many interruptions by Security. The most enjoyable part of the job was knowing I had done my best and most without being asked to do it.
Management did the best they could - they adopted the attitude that we were guest of the county and fearful of losing the contract so not supportive at times with medical staff. unfortunately for the most part Security on my shift treated medical as a necessary evil and working conditions were not always positive. On the other hand, the majority of my coworkers were wonderful to work with and I made many new friends.

I worked for Corizon as a behavioral health professional in a Kansas correctional facility.  The management is discriminatory towards their employees as well as towards the inmates.  The management is not supportive of their staff and do not offer backup in the face of conflict.  Their is favoritism toward staff and inmates alike.  If you have your own ideas or are passionate about your work, you are seen as  threat and are pushed out of your position by upper management.  
If you are an inmate who is known for being litigious, then you will be treated better than any other inmate in the facility in order to protect the billions of dollars that Corizon has accumulated by taking advantage of their employees and by providing sub-par treatment towards the inmates. I have seen inmates who are given special treatment for this reason even after they have assaulted staff numerous times.  I have seen inmates who have caused bodily harm towards staff and they are given minimal disciplinary action because Corizon is fearful of being sued.  Corizon's only concern is the bottom line and will sacrifice the mental health and physical health of it's staff in order to meet that bottom line.  
I have worked as a therapist for many years and my only passion is working in corrections.  I had to resign from my position due to the above mentioned issues.  I could no longer see inmates and staff treated unethically and I was not willing to compromise my personal ethics in order to save the company money.
DO NOT WORK FOR THIS COMPANY for any reason.  Do a search online about them and you will quickly change your mind.  They are being sued for multiple reasons, they cannot keep staff and there is a high turnover and multiple inmates have DIED while in their care.

I worked at Jefferson Co Prison in FL the pay for me was ok I started out PRN which was a good hourly rate. I left and came back after 6 months it was a total disaster they put me in a full time position without consulting me, like how do you do that. of course by me going to full time my pay decreased but wasn't bad with the shift differential......ok here a typical night 12a-8a shift

count sharp or narc with nurse
start pulling medication (which for me was over 200 inmates)
one nurse had front wall second nurse had back wall(depending on what nurse you were working with third nurse pulled confinement) also the infirmary on a good night.
pull and prep charts for call  out and sick call.  draw labs for your routine follow up.
set up for insulin diabetics 
that took me all the way to 4:45am then we start going to confinement which were two building and pass out medication for 5am. come back and give your insulin. then open up for your pill line.

this was a good night if you have good team work with nurses which they only allowed 3 at night...when ppl called out you had to work with 2 the workload was terrible.  after a while it was getting crazy  with just one nurse working with a nurse that worked a 10 hr shift having to stay over to help you. The work was not hard at all it was just the management and ppl not wanting to pull together and have teamwork from what I hear this prison has switch contracts from corizon not to for sure. as for the officers they were just there for a check they didn't really enforce the rules to the inmates but by me work mental health that didn't bother me and this was a mental health camp I may add. as well im the type of nurse that like to know my paper work incase of ER calls or a Mental Crisis was to happen they didn't teach me nothing dealing with the paper work so I just felt so incompetent working here even reached out for help to learn more so I can not depend on a nurse to do one thing they really just threw me out there will I work at another maybe for corizon that's something ill have to think long and hard about.

I hope this help

My downfall was with the new management. That was the hardest part of the job. No one will ever know the real reason I was let go. It was due to a Sgt. trying to get me to leave my husband and marry him as he was leaving his wife and didn't want to be alone. He saw that, that wasn't going to happen. So when we got our new HSA he got her to leave her husband and marry him. When she found out through another employee that I was before her, she decided I had to go. This is the honest truth. She came up with: I had made a mistake on paper work that wasn't right and needed to go.
Unemployment found this to be unfounded and sent me a letter stating there was nothing that I had done wrong and granted me unemployment. I do have the letter if you'd like me to bring it.
I was in law enforcement with the Sheriff's dept as well as being a correctional officer before that in the State of Utah and Calif. When I decided to go back into the medical field, the job came open at Algoa and I applied for it, as I was perfect for it and had the skills for it. I loved my job. I was floored and very hurt when they let me go.
I'm not sure if I should have written this, I hope it doesn't hurt my chances of working with you, but I needed to tell the truth.
I got along well with most everyone. Staff as well as the inmates. I worked 4-10's and every other weekend off. They had just given the nurses a raise. I would have been making $18.62 hr. base pay. The money and benefits were good. I thought I'd be there until I retired.
I had worked by myself, night shift, per request for the 6 yrs I was there. I was confident in my skills and wise enough to be able to work with inmates at night. It also gave me an extra $2 hr on top of the base pay.
I enjoyed making the inmates comfortable in all their confusion, and giving them a ray of hope in their challenges, when and where possible.
I personally use the Lord for my strength and wisdom and have always been blessed for it.

Review of Job Administration and Reemployment Experience

I worked as a PRN (as-needed) employee and was previously employed with the company, where I consistently demonstrated professionalism and competence. However, due to unforeseen personal challenges—including my husband's deployment, difficulties with childcare, and the passing of both my grandmother and aunt just days apart—I had to make the difficult decision to resign immediately. I communicated these challenges clearly to management at the time, understanding the importance of transparency during such a difficult period.

 After just two weeks on the job, I was entrusted to independently manage the entire behavioral health unit, a responsibility I handled with professionalism and commitment.

However, when I attempted to return to the job after resolving my personal challenges, I was informed that I would not be allowed to return. This decision was made even though my previous performance had been strong, and I had communicated my situation clearly and responsibly.

While I understand that staffing policies may be rigid, I was disheartened by the lack of understanding and flexibility shown in light of my personal circumstances. I believe this decision did not take into account the commitment I had shown during my brief tenure, nor the professionalism I maintained despite the difficult personal challenges I faced.

I would have appreciated a more compassionate approach, especially given the nature of the PRN position and the unexpected nature of the personal events I encountered. Ultimately, this experience has left me disappointed, and I hope that future employees are given more flexibility and understanding in similar situations.


When a new contract goes in new people should go in too that prevents bad attitudes and those same people could have been the reason the last company lost their contract. I have witnessed my co-workers cursing the inmates, judgmental, rude, yelling at them causing them to be upset and angry verbally attacking the officer due to the nurses behavior. Talking bad about the new D.O.N. behind her back and instead of training new employees they block them out keeping them from learning the job by lying about the way things are done, will not tell you nothing.  You have to learn the job as you go by learning from your mistakes if you make them or observe them carefully and pick up on things. Nurses are suppose to care about others.  We are not judges, the inmates have already been judged.  We are there to give nursing care for the inmates, officers or each other if needed.  Nurses refusing to take blood pressures on new orders and monitoring the inmate.  If the doctor increased your Lopressor from 100 mg BID to 150 mg BID would you just take the med or would you want to take your BP each time before you take this new med? When I suggested this to the RN a couple of days ago she replied, "That is hospital nursing, we only take blood pressures one day a week no matter."  What happen to safety or work ethics. If that inmate doesnt tolerate the new dose of medicene you could be responding to a Code. That is why people think of prison nurses as poor nurses. Encourage and lift up all, treat people with respect and dignity. Nursing is Nursing it doesnt change due to where you work, only the way you get things done should be the change, working with security for safety is first.

Great place to develop assessment skill on large diverse medical and mental health population. Acute and chronic conditions on population of about 900 inmates. Judgement developed as to who needed emergency interventions. and who could be managed in house till doctors sick call. Developed strong working relationship  Able to work with a very professional, staff guards were very sportive. The best time was on the nights when University of Santa Barbara would have a party. and we were up your neck in healthy drunk collage kids many wearing costumes. VERY INTERESTING nights. The hardest nights were when intake from the street got busy, and housed inmates would call a MAN DOWN and needed to be seen at once, meaning that most of the patrol cars would get backed up waiting for medical clearance and only a few units on the street. Most cops hate to wait, want to be on the street. Typical day  would screen 80 to 300 newly arrested  inmates, and make referrals . ranging from acute transport to ER,safe to keep overnight, referral to nurse,mental health and doctor sick call, confirm routine meds and continue them if possible. Addressing acute complaints in urgent care of about 900 housed inmates population. Management was supportive, but the demands of working in a for profit company. Many decisions are made solely on financial considerations, far removed from site where the work is being done.

A day at work is overseeing the daily operations in the Specialty Clinics unit with about 10 specialty clinicians, with a daily average of 100 patients scheduled and 8 scheduling coordinators. The challenge is to make the best effort for custody to transport and produce the patients, to educate patients in keeping their appointments and to discourage refusals and unnecessary rescheduling. With the heavy volume of patients, time management is of the essence for all providers. The Communicable Disease Unit is an Infirmary with respiratory isolation patients. This unit is composed of 24 hour medical and nursing staff, medical records and administrative staff. The West Facility also houses the Hemodialysis and Radiology units. A day at work ordinarily includes scheduled and spontaneous meetings such as workflow revisions, staff meetings, focus groups, strategy meetings with all disciplines.

Under the directions of the Regional Vice President for Operations with wide latitude for independent judgment and initiatives, supervises the day-to-day activities in the Communicable Diseases Unit and the Specialty Clinics Services Unit including but not limited to staffing, scheduling, payroll, staff discipline, environmental safety, serving as a liaison between departments: the New York Department of Health and the New York Department of Corrections.

Although you may learn something daily you are also torn down by management. You receive what we call nast-a-grams multiple times a day from both DON and HSA. If you think for one second they will come out of their offices to give a helping hand, you are dead wrong. So short staffed and you are constantly mandated or up for mandation. While the DON doesn't show up to work until noon or 3 PM and HSA leaves on time no matter if floor staff is drowning. They never help with picking up shifts because "I'm salary and dont get paid more to pick up shifts."  They would just rather work their employees to death than pick up one single shift. Sick call nurse can see up to 100+ patients per day (open sick call) and you are to see every single one or DON loves to throw out "abandonment of care". Unsafe practice 1:100+ nurse to patient ratio. All while other staff stand around and talk in HSA's office about her kids sports or others are doing outside homework on company computers. While they are doing that they get behind on their work so then some of their responsibilities are then thrown on you as your drowning. You never receive a compliment from management. Just threats and write ups. Pointless to take it up your chain of command because they always believe management. Your opinion or suggestions do not matter because what management thinks is a better idea will always be. Even though they have no clue how most areas operate. May be a better work place if DON and HSR were fired. 

A typical day at work includes narcotic count, report, preparing the medication cart, passing morning pills to approx. 100 inmates, triaging complaints on the floor, sick call after med pass, crisis watch documention, afternoon med pass, and all other nursing duties in-between such as medication refills, wound care, communication with the physcian and custody staff, etc.  I learned how to rely on my assessment skills rather than the exact complaint of the patient because inmates will over-exaggerate or make up conditions to get what they want.  I also learned how to handle such a large medication pass, and how to manage my time around passing the meds.  My co-workers are hard working nurses in a very stressful environment. They do their best to assess the patients in a safe manner and for security reasons, only send true medical problems down to the medical department. The hardest part of the job is dealing with the emotional stress that comes from the environment and working with custody officers who don't always do what they are supposed to do. Not all of them are like that, but when you have an inmate cussing and insulting you and nothing is said by the officer, that most definetly makes the job harder and much more stressful.  The most enjoyable part of the job is the patient care.  You learn a whole new group of patients who are manipulative but have real heatlh problems.  It is very interesting work.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Licensed practical nurse 249 salaries reported	$32.14 per hour
Registered nurse 200 salaries reported	$45.69 per hour
Behavioral health professional 114 salaries reported	$83,651 per year
Behavioral specialist 82 salaries reported	$28.14 per hour
Safety watch 26 salaries reported	$19.54 per hour

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