Kerry's Story
There's no one type of person who suits being a Prison Officer, but the one thing they all have in common is their commitment to doing the right thing, their ability to build a rapport with just about anybody, and their passion for doing this highly varied, challenging and rewarding job.
When I left school I went to work in an office; I was getting so bored, it really wasn’t ‘me’ sitting in front of a computer all day. So one day at home I just sat, looked through the local paper and saw a job for the Prison Service come up. I didn’t really know what I was doing… what to expect; I’d never been in a prison before; only seen it on TV and I thought well, why not, why not give it a go and just see what it’s like? It’s something completely different to what me or any of my family have ever done, so let’s just see what happens and that’s where I am now, six and a half years down the line.
I think being a female in a male prison is very good: I get on very well with everyone, I’m a really happy smiley person I talk to everyone - staff and prisoners, I haven’t got an issue with anybody. But as for being a woman, I think it’s better in a man’s prison because we’re not as confrontational as some men can be. Men seem to back down when they’re talking to us and we can talk to them and be a bit more of a calming influence I think than men.
Before I started with the Prison Service I thought that prisons were just about locking people up, not giving them anything and not even helping them, just releasing them back into the community without anything. But since I’ve worked here I’ve realised that we do help; it’s not just about closing the door behind prisoners, it’s about helping them to rehabilitate themselves and to reduce re-offending.
Because you have courses, you have CAROT teams, drugs teams who will deal with the major issues that they are suffering from and obviously as I said, trying to stop re-offending behaviour. The prisoners to me are just human beings who are here due to being put in prison by the courts; they’re no different to anybody else - obviously apart from the fact that they’ve done the crime.
I don’t look and see what their crime is, because it doesn’t concern me, I’m here to do my job and that is to look after them. At first, when I started, I was a bit shy and a bit young and a lot of prisoners did start giving me a bit of grief because I was only twenty, saying ‘My daughter’s older than you; I’m not going to listen to you’, but as soon as you do stand your ground you’re fine and they do understand and respect you and that’s what you need: you need respect within the Prison Service.
My mum does worry a bit about me being in the Prison Service, but I do try telling her it’s not like it is on television, but I think that’s more of a my family thing! When I speak to people in the street and they ask what I do and I tell them, they sort of look at me and laugh, because I am a girly girl, especially when I go out. People wouldn’t perceive me to be a Prison Officer, because that’s not what I dress like, or what their preconceptions are like about the Prison Service.
I think you need to be calming, compassionate, understanding and willing to help people; I think those are the main factors of being a Prison Officer.
