Milwaukee County Sheriff Reviews

Low pay, Excessive mandatory overtime due to extremely high turnover, 12-16 hour shifts, 6-7 days of work per week, no holidays off-ever! Employees are treated just like inmates; unprofessionally, aggressively/very poorly. The inmates treat officers better than officers and supervisors treat each-other. There have been several inmate deaths in the jail over the past couple of years, probably due in part to the toxic culture within. No direct oversight by senior management, they are never there. Lieutenants that don't know what they are doing run the show. Sheriff Clark never showed his face or took part in the jail not once that I recall. Hopefully the new Sheriff will take more interest in one of his/her primary responsibilities. There are a few good supervisors, and a lot of good officers who want to be successful, but others don't know how to talk to talk to people professionally and talk down to other officers with a bully-like mentality. This behavior is condoned daily. Some Lieutenants (I will not name) make the job 100 times more difficult than it needs to be. If the public could only see what the day-to-day is like, they would be appalled. Too many unqualified people have been hired and put in supervisory positions that talk down to employees instead of positively coaching and helping to build morale. Most employees fear giving feedback to management (Lieutenants and Captains, etc) because they retaliate and condone a culture of bad behavior, ignoring certain policies and procedures, needlessly focusing more attention on other petty things. Employees are scared of each-other and supervisors, they aren't scared of the inmates. Employees are intimidated not to tell on other employees when they're doing something wrong. A lot of scapegoating happens when things go awry. There needs to be a very serious overhaul of the jail, focusing attention on employee morale/team-building and health in order to ensure the safety of inmates. Inmate safety is being jeopardized in my opinion with the current culture/state of the jail. They really should consider just having Deputies takeover the jail again. There weren't nearly as many problems and with the turnover and overtime they aren't really saving any money and safety - a primary focus of the jail is being jeopardized. I hoped things would improve but I have been looking for other work to reduce the amount of stress I receive daily. In the meantime, beware if you are considering this as a job. They'll tell you from day one it is not for everyone, and that's true. They'll also tell you that you chose this, they didn't choose you. You can leave anytime. They can fire you for no reason within your first probationary year. You are on pins and needles until then left to sink or swim on your own. It's such a toxic way of thinking. They pretty much confirm you're getting into a toxic work environment with no hope for improvement. This should raise red flags for county administrators and the public. I pray things improve for the next rounds of officers that come in, because there will be more. There are always more -- as turnover is abnormally high. Deputy turnover was never ever this high. Obviously this current setup is not working.