Resident Monitor: Dream Job for Slackers and Retirees - Resident Monitor Concho Valley CSCD Employee Review

Many resident monitors quit or are fired within a year of employment and this high turnover rate is because of overpaid upper management and underpaid resident monitors, high stress environment involving physical intimidation, inadequate training, lack of experienced supervisors, and other factors. There is a high number of senior resident monitor staff that are retirees. High stress environment, preferred negligence of duties: Offenders that are supervised in this program are typically guilty of crimes of theft and burglary, possession of illegal drugs, driving while intoxicated, and criminal mischief. About 80% are below the age of 35 and about 98% have the immaturity and impulsiveness of a junior high student regardless of age. Now, corrections is a challenging position because while you are responsible for the safety, well-being, and conduct of offenders, most of the offenders are also actively attempting to manipulate you into not doing your job. Most of the offender population is intent on manipulating staff by being nice and polite when staff don't enforce the rules and when the rules are enforced they then resort to rudeness, verbal abuse, physical intimidation, and false written complaints/slander. Many people just don't know how to cope within this atmosphere of hostility toward staff and some employees quit soon after becoming aware of this pressure whereas other staff who remain either enter into unspoken deals of leniency with the offenders or flat out refuse to enforce the rules. This pressure can be so great that resident monitors (who are required to transport offenders off site) won't expect offenders to wear a seat belt and resident monitors have even been caught speeding when transporting offenders because they were intimidated by offenders who didn't want to be late for work. Physical intimidation can take place when an offender stares at a resident monitor in a threatening way, yelling and verbal abuse with profanity, making verbal threats, or walking close behind a resident monitor/blocking a resident monitor's path thru a hallway. Much to my surprise, this organization does NOT have a zero tolerance for violence or threats of violence towards other residents and even staff. If a resident gets into a physical confrontation with another resident where blows are exchanged, the residents will not be immediately expelled from the program. Instead, only repeated acts of violence or threats of violence and/or implied threats of violence will cause an offender to be expelled from the program which is completely unacceptable for staff members and offenders who actually want to complete the program in a safe, peaceful environment. Even if a resident monitor still enforces the rules, offenders can retaliate by making false or misleading complaints. This makes upper management look bad and its always better for upper management when a resident monitor make deals with residents to look the other way when they violate the rules because when the offender completes the program they will praise that resident monitor's exceptional conduct in the exit survey. There is actually some quota of offenders that need to pass the program for upper management to look good; within a structured environment there is an increase in people who simply cannot behave and end up failing the program so ultimately the more loose the environment the better upper management appears to be doing their job of "leadership." This can be so extreme at this organization that there have been cases where a resident monitor has avoided writing up any offender for any reason unless directed by their supervisor and no action was taken to address their negligence of duty. Essentially, the resident monitor has crossed the professional boundary between staff and offender and become the offender's buddy accomplice and upper management benefits by this incompetence. And on that note, this is a slacker's dream job. The hardest part of the job is ensuring a structured environment for the offenders. Take away enforcing the rules and most of the stress from the job is removed. Offenders become exceedingly polite with resident monitors who follow this pattern, knowing that wink wink they'll ignore or mitigate any violations they commit in the program or if a violation is handed out then they'll only get a slap in the wrist while more serious violations are ignored altogether or only once in a while enforced. Inadequate training, incompetent new hires, low pay: Staff background and training are very important and these are two of the crucial mistakes of this organization. CSCD hires anyone off the street (mostly retirees, some college students, anyone without a criminal record) and then it can take up to a year before new employees are sent to a 1 week long formal training course. In other words, the first week on the job and for months afterwards they are only provided informal on the job training by another more experienced employee. This is done because of the high turnover rate and they don't want to pay the extra expense for properly training people who may quit within a month. If a person does stay long enough for the 1 week training course it won't be in San Angelo because CSCD will only pay for cheap hotels in other smaller cities. I actually considered quitting when I learned I would have to travel out of town and I know some people have quit when they realized that they would have to live in a motel for 1 week (also there is no gas compensation unless you go in the company van which means sharing a car with a group of people for a week). Due to the pitifully low pay many experienced in corrections will never apply for this job and CSCD will not pay people more for having corrections experience; instead you get to work with coworkers who have never been around offenders in their life and watch them make obvious mistakes. You can be sure there is zero chance to get a raise at this position, no opportunity to make more money by working overtime, and you will technically make less then the posted wage because every 2 week paycheck they will automatically deduct mandatory retirement which you cannot access unless you quit or retire. Once it was brought up in a meeting that the department was short staffed with resident monitors and management regrettably informed us that the budget was already set and there would be no increase in pay (their ridiculous solution was to advertise job openings at more professional websites). However, the real problem is upper management is paid too much and the pay scales should be changed so resident monitors are paid more, but of course this would be unthinkable for upper management. It is also worth noting that there is a large amount of computer work involved at this position and management does not require any previous computer experience so you could end up having a coworker that types 5 wpm and isn't even familiar with the most basic windows tasks like copying and pasting text, highlighting data with the mouse, etc. Shortage of qualified supervisors: Because most people refuse to stay at CSCD there is a shortage of qualified supervisors which means that when that shift supervisor is off for two days then one of the resident monitors on that shift is made the "head monitor." This causes problems because the head monitor has increased responsibility to make sure the shift is running accordingly and disputes can arise with coworkers who resent having to be supervised by another coworker. In federal corrections this would never happen; only someone who has been there for several years would be assigned to oversee a shift. The high turnover rate has another side effect where new and senior staff get away with outrageous behavior. New staff members who realize that the high turnover rate means they won't be fired will then do less and less, ignore proper procedure and/or refuse to do certain basic job duties like medication call, wear a radio, etc. I heard rumors that resident monitors were sleeping on graveyard shift. Medication call, transporting residents: Medication call is an area that is also problematic for resident monitors because you are responsible for dispensing prescription and non prescription medications and a nurse may not even be in the facility nor is required to be in the facility during medication call. Of course the offenders will attempt to trick staff into dispensing medication that they don't need, aren't allowed, or in other inappropriate ways. If a resident monitor makes a mistake and dispenses the wrong medication and/or the offender tricks them into dispensing something they shouldn't, the resident monitor will be liable and all for a pay rate of less then $10 an hour. Probably the most dangerous part of the job is routinely resident monitors will transport groups of offenders to work, appointments, etc in 12-14 passenger vans. This can stressful for new employees because as the driver you have a group of offenders who may attempt to distract you from driving and/or attempt to pressure you to break the law by speeding. There is a predictable pattern of resident monitors who cave into this pressure and do not enforce seatbelt usage and/or drive over the speed limit. If a resident monitor drives at the speed limit, expects offenders to use seatbelts, etc then some offenders will retaliate by claiming the resident monitor is an unsafe driver. In summary if you have no career goals or you are retired and just want to stay busy this is the job for you.