VOICES FROM INSIDE THE SYSTEM
‘I Don’t Think Anyone Grows Up Wanting to Be a Prison Guard’
A corrections officer reflects on 15 years of working among incarcerated people
Voices From Inside the System is a new GEN series where we interview people who have had firsthand experience in industries with especially fraught histories of systemic racism. We asked our subjects to think deeply about the role they played and the work they did. We asked them why they stayed or why they left, how they might be complicit, or if they thought they — or anyone — could fundamentally change the system.
This 38-year-old white corrections officer has been working in New York state prisons for 15 years. According to the Sentencing Project, one in three Black men born in 2001 can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. The prison population in New York is nearly 50,000, and the ratio of Black to white incarcerated people in the state is eight to one. This officer spoke with journalist Haley Cohen Gilliland about his experience.
I don’t think anyone grows up wanting to be a prison guard. I was going to school for my two-year degree in criminal justice and waiting for the local police department to call me. I had gotten a letter from New York state asking if I was interested in…
