The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

About 125 people attended a Bureau of Prisons recruitment workshop in this former mill town Wednesday night, and were given the lowdown on what they need to do to ready themselves for a potential career in corrections.

A year from now, the agency will start hiring staff for the 1,280 bed medium-security prison that is under construction north of the Notches (Pinkham, Crawford and Franconia). The $230 million prison is the second largest public works project in New Hampshire's history, and is expected to open in the fall of 2010.

Armed with a PowerPoint presentation, a high-spirited delivery and 18 years of experience recruiting for the agency, regional activation coordinator Cathi Litcher outlined potential positions, salaries and background requirements, and advised potential recruits to take the long view -- spend the next 12 months getting fitter, healthier and more law-abiding.

When FCI-Berlin opens next fall, 341 employees will be hired, from corrections officers to teachers, accountants, plumbers, drug treatment specialists and a chaplain, doctor and dentist. Litcher said that approximately 40 percent of the personnel will come from transfers within the agency, where moving from one institution to another is seen as a way of moving up in rank.

The other 60 percent -- approximately 200 people -- will be hired from the local area, if they can meet the agency's requirements. "Honestly, sometimes I have a hard time getting 60 percent," said Litcher. In addition to a clean background, a federal correctional officer needs to be under 37 at the time they are hired so they can put in the requisite 20 years of service before mandatory retirement at age 57.

The average age of Berlin's unemployed mill workers is 55, and young people leave the city in droves because of a lack of available work.

Some of Litcher's most emphatic advice for potential recruits was to have their credit histories in order, and their bills paid. "Don't let the federal interview be the first time you hear about your credit history. Meet the financial piece of the puzzle."

She said that unpaid bills and financial pressures leave an employee open to exploitation in a prison where a smuggled carton of cigarettes can fetch $800 and a cell phone can garner up to $1,200. "If you aren't paying your bills, don't think an inmate won't try to manipulate you."

Litcher told them to be upfront about past transgressions, because each applicant could expect a full background check. "You'd be surprised what your friends will give up when someone with a badge comes to ask about your background."

She also outlined a stringent interview process that includes a panel interview during which a trained psychologist and others ask "uncomfortable" questions. Applicants will also be required to watch a video of a disturbance and asked to describe it in writing. "You think working in a prison is all fun and games? No, it isn't."

If an applicant is hired, he or she then enters into rigorous training that includes three weeks at a training facility in Glynco, Ga., for courses in self-defense and firearms, as well as physical tests.

The Bureau of Prisons will soon be recruiting for three federal prisons nationwide. In addition to Berlin, federal prisons are being built in Mendota, Calif., and McDowell County, W.Va., and will be activated within the coming year.

All three areas regions share at least one thing in common: unemployment above the national average. Mendota has been called the "unemployment capital of California," where the jobless rate is a staggering 41 percent. In McDowell county, it is 9.9 percent, and In Coös County, unemployment is running at 9.5 percent.

When Litcher asked the crowd how many came from Berlin, most of the hands went up. Since the federal prison was first proposed in 2001, the main reasoning behind its construction has been the economic shot-in-the-arm it might bring to New Hampshire's North Country, which has been devastated in recent years by the shuttering of its paper and pulp mills. Those who are from the local area who work in a prison, and do not want to transfer, said Litcher, are called "homesteaders, and they are a rock-solid piece of our corrections puzzle."

The North Country may be on track for a corrections-based economy. Berlin already has one state prison -- the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility, where the gym has been converted to accommodate prisoners from the Lakes Region Facility in Laconia, which is closing.

New Hampshire Department of Corrections Commissioner Bill Wrenn traveled to Berlin last fall to talk to the city council about the possibility of building a state women's prison here, and in a speech earlier this spring, Gov. John Lynch suggested that the North Country could become home to a 2,000-3,000-inmate regional prison that houses inmates from neighboring states. The idea has not taken flight.

A sprinkling of people in the audience were from the neighboring towns of Gorham and Milan, and at least two were from southern New Hampshire. One of those was Jim Colby, 27, who saw a blurb about the event in the Nashua Telegraph and drove up to Berlin from Hollis, N.H. For several years, Colby has been trying to become a police officer, moving throughout southern New Hampshire and as far south as Philadelphia. But a hiring freeze in that city sent him back to the Granite State to look for work.

Colby had never been to Berlin, but is tempted into corrections by the job stability and salary. "It sounds like a good career. Why not?" The starting annual pay for a correctional officer is $37,953, and rises each year.

The seminar for job seekers was part of a series of forums sponsored by the New Hampshire Department of Employment Security. It was designed to inform recruiters, Realtors, contractors, educators and others about the prison's potential impact on the region.

Litcher said she will return to New Hampshire next spring for more recruitment seminars, including some in the southern part of the state, possibly Concord.

http://www.eagletimes.com/ET/LocalNews/story/090604-ch-NHprisonrecruiting