By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
It was an unlikely setting for a job fair.
Earlier this week, more than 40 people showed up to the Wood County Jail for employment. The sheriff’s office hosted a recruitment event for people possibly interested in becoming corrections deputies.
Realizing that potential employees might be intimidated by the prospect of working in a jail, the sheriff’s office debunked some myths and gave tours of the jail.
Capt. Rebecca McMonigal, the jail administrator, began by explaining the goal of the facility.
“We keep them safe and secure, then get them out of here,” she said.
“A lot of peoples’ expectations of what jails are is not what ours is,” McMonigal said.
The county jail is full of good people who have made bad choices, she explained.
“You’re meeting people on the worst days of their lives,” she said. “We’re not there to judge. We’re here to get them through the process.”
Jail staff are trained to be respectful of the inmates, McMonigal said.
“There’s something to be said about being respectful of the inmates,” she said as one tour group walked past an inmate in the hallway.
Currently, there are five openings for corrections deputies and one for a cook. Some of those who showed up at the job event had experience in other jails. Some had never set foot inside a jail before.
“I think that sometimes we find people who have wondered if they would be a good fit in a career like corrections or have hesitated to apply because they don’t totally know what the job entails. So we’ve come up with the idea to have this recruitment night to educate those who may have an interest,” said Brianne Cooper, director of human resources and finance with the sheriff’s office.
McMonigal went over some of the basic information. The jail capacity is 220. As of earlier this week, the number of inmates was close to 100. The numbers dropped during COVID, and are always lower when Bowling Green State University is out for the summer, she said.
In 2019, the intakes numbered 3,532. With COVID, that dropped to 2,552 in 2020.
The jail houses males and females, and has several different housing sections for prisoners at varying security levels. Occasionally juveniles – such as one recently charged with murder – are housed at the county jail separately from the adults.
Inmates who volunteer can perform jobs such as cleaning, yardwork, gardening, painting, or kitchen duties.
All inmates get a minimum of five hours of recreation a week, and many inmates make weekly visits to the library which is an anomaly for a county jail.
The inmates first enter through the sallyport and into booking. There they undergo a pat down search, are fingerprinted and photographed, showered, deloused and scanned to make sure there is no contraband in body cavities. They are issued jail clothing – with blue for women, orange for men, gray for minimum security housing, and white for kitchen workers.
Many inmates come to the facility with mental health issues, and 10-minute suicide watches are required for those considered at risk.
“We’re a dumping ground for mental health problems,” McMonigal said.
Corrections officers work eight-hour shifts, five days a week. There is plenty of opportunity for overtime – which isn’t just pushed onto the new recruits, McMonigal said.
Staff is cross trained. “Everybody’s trained on every post,” she explained.
Booking is the most difficult job, McMonigal said, so at the suggestion of staff, more time is given to get accustomed to the booking positions.
McMonigal said she asks for input from staff before making big decisions. She worked her way up to jail administrator from staffing the floor – so she recognizes the value of comments from everyone involved.
The starting pay is $21.60 an hour, increasing to $23.85 after six months, and to $26.65 after a year. The benefits are good – the same as for all Wood County employees, Cooper said.
The traits needed to be a good corrections officer include a professional work ethic.
“We want somebody who would be proud to call this their profession,” McMonigal said.
The job is often a stepping stone for people wanting to go into law enforcement.
The turnover of corrections officers “ebbs and flows,” Cooper said, with now being a time of ebbing.
“We were extremely pleased with the turnout,” Cooper said. “We weren’t sure how it would turn out.”
By Thursday morning, nine of the people who attended had already returned their applications.
“I’m really excited it worked the way it did,” Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said. Such an event gives job applicants a more accurate picture of the county jail.
“People have an image of a dark, dungeon-like, dirty facility,” the sheriff said. But the tours show how clean and well-managed the facility actually is, he added.
