10 Years In Law Enforcement

Ten years ago I started my career in law enforcement.  However, that isn’t really what I thought I would be doing.

I always wanted to be a school teacher.

From the time I was in 2^nd grade I had known I wanted to teach.  It wasn’t until I got to high school that I decided I wanted to teach high school math.  I had an excellent math teacher in high school.  He was very encouraging and very inspiriting.  I had also known many women who taught math and I wanted to be one of them.  I loved algebra and I loved solving equations.

My orientation at Boise State University did not turn out as encouraging as I had hoped.  The advisor from the math department that I met with crushed my dreams a little.  He told me that teaching math was no place for a woman.  That didn’t stop me though.  I continued with my general courses and eventually along came Calculus 2.  That is the class that made me change the path I thought I was destined to be on. 

I was good, really good, at math.  I just couldn’t seem to pass Calculus 2.  I tried really hard all semester, gave 110%, and cried after every test.  It just so happened that same advisor I met with on the first day of orientation was also my Calculus 2 professor.  It was hard.  It challenged me.   Calculus 2 broke me.  Suddenly I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.

I looked at the college catalog front to back and searched for a new path.  There were two other majors that I could switch too without making all the classes I had already completed totally worthless.  One was Mass Communication/Journalism and the other was Criminal Justice.  From that day forward I became a Criminal Justice major and thus started my future career path.

It was exciting.  I loved learning about crime and prisons.  I wanted to work my first internship in the male prison.  My advisor, however, didn’t.  They don’t quite let you go into the prison right away so I started with juvenile diversion.  I worked with Ada County’s Diversion Program and met some really great kids.  Diversion is an alternative sentencing program for first time offenders.  You work with them individually to set up programming and community service in lieu of spending time in a juvenile detention facility.  It was great but also sad to learn that no matter what you did for these kids you eventually had to put them back into the home that might be part of the problem.  How do you explain to a kid that drugs are bad when Mom or Dad sells drugs to put food on the table?  There were some challenging times.

My next internship was with the Department of Correction and the Pre-Sentencing Investigation Unit.  This is where you meet with criminals who are have been charged with a crime but not yet sentenced.  My job was to interview the criminal, his/her family, friends, employment, school, etc to find out all you can about that individual.  Based on what you learned you make a sentencing recommendation for the judge.  Often we recommended programming but sometimes we recommended incarceration.  It was a really neat job and I learned a lot.

My final practicum was with the Department of Correction with Adult Felony Probation and Parole.  I was specifically assigned with the Sex Offender Unit.  I LOVED this job.  This is the job that introduced me to the world of probation and parole and the career path I had hoped to get into.  Probation is when a criminal is sentenced for a crime but doesn’t have to serve prison time.  Parole is when a criminal has served some prison time and finishes his/her sentence in the community checking in with his/her officer periodically.  I actually enjoyed working with the Sex Offender Unit and I REALLY enjoyed working with the officer I was assigned to.  She was a female officer and a strong personality.  I really valued that.  I was sad when this practicum came to an end but I had hoped I would find a job with probation and parole in my future.

I was not successful in securing the job I had wanted to badly.  I think on the outside I looked naive.  I didn’t have any experience and I’m sure I looked like an easy target for a criminal.  I applied with the Department of Correction to work in the prison.  I figured this would be a stepping stone for gaining some experience along with getting my foot in the door.  I scored a 100% on my test and after my interview found out I would be one of 12 officers, and one of only two females, selected to work in an adult men’s maximum security prison.  My mother was convinced I would feel sorry for one of those inmates and one day bring one home. 

I knew fairly quickly the maximum security prison was not the place I wanted to be forever.  It was very dark and jaded environment.  Inmates were not nice, staff was not nice, and administration was not nice.  I took a transfer to the men’s community work center and then the woman’s community work center.  Community Work Centers are prison facilities but they are very low security and they are for inmates that are on good behavior and are being re-integrated into the community environment.  They work jobs in the community to gain some experience before their release.  While it was like night and day from working in the maximum security prison I did enjoy it, however, I was stuck on the graveyard shift until they hired somebody with lower seniority.  I knew it was time to look at other avenues.

I applied and after an extensive background check, hearing test, and polygraph I was hired on with State Police at the Communication Center.  It has been eight years already, man does time fly.  Like any job there are still days that frustrate me and days I don’t like coming to work.  Over all though, it isn’t a bad job.  Yes, I said job.  I feel like being almost 35 years old I should have a career by now and yet I still see this as my job.  It is a good paying job that affords Kenyon and I the ability to travel.  Really, I can’t complain about that!

As a young kid starting college 16 years ago I never would have envisioned my life where I am now.  Every event in life shapes you.  Good things and bad things, smiles and tears, it all shapes you into the person you are meant to be.  I have no idea what the future holds and if that future will still include a career in law enforcement.  It has sure been an interesting 10 years.