Pros
Expensive but good benefits, annual employee picnic, Sheriffs Office has 8 hour shifts. Relatively good job security working in the jail.
Cons
They are very pro management and once you make rank you become one of the good old boys and can do no wrong. They treat the officers about the same as the inmates, always trying to find something you are doing wrong, something they can blame you for instead of the supervisors. All of the chains of command are bad but some more than others, treating you like a child and making pointless rules and policies for you to follow.They use blanket punishment on all officers instead of terminating or disciplining the one individual who errored. Most of the upper level brass are very arrogant /cocky and sometimes just downright rude. They seem too busy basking in their greatness that they don't even remember what it was like working with inmates, which for most of them was decades ago. There is no complete rule book for officers to follow. Most of the rules/policies they come up with are past along through word of mouth. The applicant pool for officers isn't much better though. They consistently hire people who, for various reasons, cannot perform the job and then have them working the floor instead of putting them in a position where they will be most useful and not in a position that risks other officers safety. The jail is set up primarily with pods as housing units, which is a large open tank filled with up to dozens and dozens of inmates and 1 officer locked behind two doors. Obviously not a recipe for success, surprisingly more offices haven't been assaulted in these pods then there have been. Once during a use of force class the instructor who happened to be brass asked the class what the SO gave them to defend themselves. Everyone sat quite because we are not given anything to defend ourselves, nothing! The instructor finally said " we give you your keys and radio." Seriously? Keys and radio! Keep dreaming buddy. The county is also very cheap. Our pay is well bellow what surrounding counties are paying. You basically only get a small percentage raise every few years and its usually eaten up by a raise in insurance prices. But when we do get a small raise everybody gets it, the hard worker and the lazy, the good and the bad. So as you can see there is no incentive to work your butt off. They do not value hard work, dedication or experience. They do like college degrees though and will pay you a hefty premium for it. Even if it has nothing to do with your job whatsoever. They will pay someone who just started yesterday with a bachelors degree in fashion, with no experience, more than they will pay the FTO training them who has been there a decade. They also don't pay the deputies that work in the jail any extra for their certification. But will pay you extra for your EMT certification which has nothing to do with us because the jail has its own medical staff 24/7 and the officers are not allowed to treat the inmates. They also don't pay any overtime, it all goes to comp. Up until a few years ago they didn't even pay you for your 15 minutes of briefing you got daily. I guess someone finally sued them and they switched to a electronic clock in machine. I wonder how many millions they stole from their already underpaid officers over all those years? In conclusion, there is lots of other problems with this agency, but the bottom line is the SO does not value its officers and they do not have their backs. I would only recommend working in the jail if you were just looking for a job. That's it. If your looking for a career in LE look elsewhere, you will not grow here, it will only hinder you.