WHILE people may be familiar with the fictional officers from Wentworth or Orange is the New Black, Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) is celebrating the real faces of prison life and thanking their more than 7000 frontline staff this week.
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Friday marks the inaugural Corrections Day, which takes the community beyond the prison walls to hear the stories of the men and women of the NSW correctional system who rehabilitate inmates, keep offenders accountable and aim to reduce reoffending.
CSNSW Commissioner Peter Severin said community corrections and custodial officers, industry and trade overseers, services and programs staff, including those at St Heliers at Muswellbrook, faced a tough and often dangerous job each day.
“Corrections Day is an opportunity to recognise the valuable contribution of frontline staff, who supervise offenders and keep our community safe,” he said.
“Custodial officers respond to more than 60 incidents each day across the state, such as contraband finds, assaults, medical issues and often unpredictable scenarios.
“Our officers’ efforts mostly go unnoticed by the community, because the work they do is behind the walls of prisons or the doors of community corrections offices.
“Our staff undertake a wide-range of jobs, from delivering programs that rehabilitate offenders, to providing work skills that inmates can use post-release, and managing offenders’ case plans that help address their behaviour.”
NSW Minister for Corrections David Elliott, who visited St Heliers in November, said correctional officers faced situations that were similar to many other frontline officers, such as police and ambulance officers.
“Prison staff respond to fires in cells, break-up fights between inmates, as well as help address mental health and behavioural issues,” he explained.
“They experience things that many of us will never see in a lifetime, but they act efficiently and professionally.
“Overseers who run industry and trade courses, as well as programs staff help with the inmate’s rehabilitation by providing guidance and skills that help turn their lives around.
“On the outside, community corrections officers supervise offenders on parole and other community-based orders to help reintegrate them back into the community.”
CSNSW employs more than 4750 custodial officers, about 580 services and programs staff and psychologists as well as nearly 500 overseers at the 35 correctional centres across the state.
More than 1200 community corrections officers are employed at the 58 community corrections offices and seven satellite offices in NSW.
