California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Reviews

Pros

Good camaraderie among mental health staff and a real chance to make a difference in the most underserved population. Good pay and benefits and 4 tens schedule prevent burnout.

Cons

Working with custody staff can be challenging, some of the inmates can also test you, and when staffing is low, your workload increases making it hard to keep up.

Pros

•High pay, beginning at $72,000/year after completion of 16 week academy. (During academy, paid at lower training pay scale.) •Respected occupation •Sworn peace officer, State of California •Full benefits from day one, including health, dental, optical, sick leave, vacation time accrued monthly, holiday pay, and retirement. 401K or 457 available. •Vested after 5 years •Peace Officer/Firefighter (POFF) pay scale •For new hire officers, CalPERS retirement pay accrues at 2.5% X number of years worked, at age 57. Typical career is 27 to 30 years. Minimum age 21; no upper age limit. •Opportunity to compete for advancement, or lateral transfer to Paroles Division. •33 prison locations at which to serve, distributed throughout the State of California. •Availability of overtime at overtime pay scale of 1.5 times that of straight time. •Two regular days off per week are “consecutive days,” ie, two days in a row, never split days off.

Cons

•Same risks as those incurred by all members of the law enforcement community: serious injury, or even death, resulting from inmate attack,or possible risk of exposure to tuberculosis, or of an accidental exposure to blood-borne pathogens (HIV, Hep-C.) •Some involuntary overtime, without right to refuse. •May rotate to all three shifts and weekends.

Pros

Great Benefits, pension and Overtime

Cons

You are at the mercy of the institutional needs and can be held for involuntary overtime several times a month.

Pros

Prison has replaced the antiquated Psychiatric hospitals of old. If you have a passion for treating trauma, psychosis, mood disorders, substance abuse, etc., etc., etc., with an interdisciplinary team of providers, CDCR will provide you with a never-ending line of patients. There are many super-qualified clinicians employees who are very passionate about delivering the highest quality of care for their patients. All employees in CDCR are Unionized, so there are many protections and benefits to being employed. Predictable salary and raises, predictable allocation of time off, etc., etc.

Cons

Clinicians who provide direct patient care are not valued. Their job duties and assignments are changed at the whim of management, their office spaces are changed whenever convenient to leadership, and work schedules are also changed whenever management wants to. There are no incentives to being passionate and going above-and-beyond; there are a lot of disincentives to doing any extra work because it increases liability upon yourself. Management is quick to criticize and blame, but they do not recognize clinicians who take-on more than their fair share. Documentation is micro-managed with little guidance or mentoring. All throughout the pandemic, local leadership minimized the risks to being present in-person, mocked those to feared the virus, and pressured clinicians to meet in-person despite having all the resources available to meet remotely. Turnover is very high despite it being a government job that usually leads to stability and longevity.