Pros
The prisoners were, on the whole, excellent to work with. Every day you can make a difference to people's lives.
Cons
-Management have zero experience working on the ground, they're all transferred sideways or externally recruited and have no self awareness or understanding of how their decisions affect the workforce. -Communication is non existent. -Horrific blame culture - you have to avoid doing anything unless you've been told in writing and you've got the evidence safely stored. -Very little meaningful support - a really bad job if you have any kind of conscience or empathy. -Zero health and safety - I spent over four years working alone with large groups of prisoners - no supervision whatsoever and no training on how to do my job aside from hearsay from my disgruntled colleagues. This all runs on good faith between you and your men, and your own personal character. -Zero motivation to do your job well - productive staff are expected to carry swathes of people some years from retirement who have decided they are on the "wind down" and refuse to do any work. There is seemingly no course of action available to management if you simply do nothing. -Some amazing colleagues, but overshadowed by a huge amount of bullying and nastiness within the ranks - I was stunned at how many professional civil servants feel it's appropriate to behave like school children.