Welcome to the Bureau of Prisons—a world where security is tight and the margin for error is zero. From correctional officers and case managers to medical staff and admin teams, this forum is for anyone who’s part of the high-stakes, high-stress federal prison system. Talk about shifts, staffing shortages, safety protocols, union issues, and how to stay mentally sharp behind the walls. It’s not an easy job—but you’re not alone in it.
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Just starting as a prison Paramedic medical technician.
The hiring to get this far has been long. I started 4 or so months ago. And applied to all the prisons on USA jobs not sure what would work out. Well they all did, and very soon after each other my email inbox blew up. Then was the great challenge to choose some and deny any outright for interviews.
My mistake I think was doing my first interview with one of the prisons I applied to and scheduling other interviews with other prisons that same day, and we did it over video conference. (It was all straight forward).
But that first prison then decided to not share my intake paperwork or drug tests, physicals with other prisons and just didn’t reply to other peoples emails… This became a significant issue and major time suck.
I then wanted to interview with some other prisons… Mind you I’ve never worked with any other prisons, so I needed to first learn about the system, what each place had going on and what their offerings were, and what the work would sound like… However, the first prison wasn’t responding to emails from the other prisons for scheduling interviews, so I then needed to ask for those prisons to reach out to somewhat local federal prisons so I could schedule my interviews with them, well, those prisons took weeks to reply with availabilities. Which was often weeks away, or the next day…
And then finally as I was ready to start doing some interviews and it all lined up…
Emails that started flooding that the federal hiring freeze finally hit the prisons, and now all of them were rejecting my applications.
So the way that apparently works is prisons are given a percentage of standing on employment. So if they have enough medical staffing, then they’re not able to hire, but if they don’t, then they are excluded from the hiring freeze and can hire.
Much to say, no clue of anyone cares.