What's it like to work in a prison for women?

Specialties Correctional

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:confused: I have worked in 2 prisons for men. I have never worked in a women's prison. What is it like to work in a women's prison? Do you prefer working in an all male prison or an all women prison ?

:roll Thanks

Specializes in correctional,ICU,CCU,ED,military.
I don't work in a prison . I work in a county jail and so of course we have male and female inmates. Even though our female population is about 20 % of our total population , they generally take more time to do pill call .sick call etc..

We had a new male nurse last week that lasted only 3 days and I really think the reason he quit was our female dorms. They can get really tacky to say the least. As a general rule we have more complaints out of the females. Hope this helps.

Reply to nursecookie9503: County jails are alot different than state and federal prisons as far as women go. Have you any opportunity to try a larger prison job, like state or federal? I work in the largest prison in NC, which is all female, and we notice that our new intake prisoners from jails take awhile to settle down, and settle in. Maybe it is the environment there. I really enjoy working in a state prison. We have 1300 women in ours, and also house death row inmates.

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Thanks everyone for your messages. Wow! Susan 18. 1300 female inmates! That sounds like an interesting job. So perhaps the women are whiners at the jail and then mellow out when they reach the state prisons? :)

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:) Susan 18. I forgot to ask if you work in Raleigh? I have thought of relocating to Raleigh in the future as it seems they have a lot of prisons? What's it like to live in Raleigh? Which part of Raleigh is closest to most of the prisons such as North Raleigh or Southeast Raleigh? Thanks so much! :rotfl:

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Specializes in correctional,ICU,CCU,ED,military.
:) Susan 18. I forgot to ask if you work in Raleigh? I have thought of relocating to Raleigh in the future as it seems they have a lot of prisons? What's it like to live in Raleigh? Which part of Raleigh is closest to most of the prisons such as North Raleigh or Southeast Raleigh? Thanks so much! :rotfl:

reply to Blackcat 99: Yes, I do live and work in Raleigh. It is a great place to live. I say that because I spent years in Chicago with awful winter weather, and I do not like snow at all! And here I was raised in Pa., where we also get alot of cold weather! What is also good here is that we have UNC and Duke nearby, and the big medical center, Wake Med, with many educational offerings and seminar opportunities. I go to some things at UNC that are offered. Yes, there are 2 large state prisons in Raleigh, and a federal prison north of here in Butner, about 1 hr. away. The womens' prison is where I work (NC Corr. Institution for Women) and is a close custody, maximum security prison laid out like a campus. Central Prison is right down the road about 2 miles, and is also max. security, for males. That one is all self-enclosed, with interconnecting buildings. Both of our prisons have Death Row inmates. NCCIW is located adjacent to the downtown area, easy to get to, and 15 min. from my home in SE Raleigh. We also have 2 nearby minimum security facilites in Raleigh, Raleigh Corr. for Women, right near NCCIW, and Wake Corr. for male inmates, which I believe is a work-release facility. If you do ever decide to relocate to Raleigh, I would be happy to help you any way I can. I know the state nurse recruiter for corrections very well. Send me a private message if you decide to, and I'll answer. susan18

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Susan 18. Thank you so very much for all the useful information.Raleigh sounds wonderful! :)

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Very interesting topic.....working with men or women in the prison system. Well I have done both. I started as a Forensic Psych Nurse in a Maximum Security hospital and now I am in a Maximum Security Women's Prison. While in the hospital setting I worked with the men for a few years and found that working with men were so much easier than with the women! Plus they would fight fair. When I say fight I mean literally fight. The ones that I took care of in the hospital were extremely aggressive and many of my co-workers were seriously injured through the years we worked together. I too suffered some serious injuries and I am still in a Workman's Comp situation awaiting a court hearing. Anyways, women are harder to work with because they whine about everything!!!!!!!!! They have medicine for every single feeling you could possibly have and they have ointments, cremes, suppositories for every orifice of their bodies! They are domineering, sneaky, rude, viscious, emotional, erratic, demanding, disrespectful and just plain mean. Most of them have a mission to see just how upset they can get you or just how many people they can get fired for the fun of it. They fight against their fellow patients and they fight the staff that try to take care of them. They know more about staff and their personal life than the co-workers theirselves as the patients will sneak around and listen to every word a staff member is saying. They use anything and everything they can against you if you don't do something for them. They write grievances for every tiny thing they can come up with. And those tears........tears that can be turned on and off at will. They so over exaggerate everything that happens. I am an empathetic nurse but very cautious when it comes to my assessments of the inmates. I prefer to work with the women only because I hate dealing with the males that make sexually inappropriate statements, flirt, or whine like a girl. They are much easier to work with on the whole, but just not what I want to do. I am a Mental Health RN in the prison system now and it's a wonderful job. I enjoy working with the women and helping them try to get their lives back on track so that they can fit back into society.

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:chuckle Great post Cindy. It sounds like the women are bigger "whiners" then the men!!!

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I don't work in a prison . I work in a county jail and so of course we have male and female inmates. Even though our female population is about 20 % of our total population , they generally take more time to do pill call .sick call etc..

We had a new male nurse last week that lasted only 3 days and I really think the reason he quit was our female dorms. They can get really tacky to say the least. As a general rule we have more complaints out of the females. Hope this helps.

Female incarceration is usually run as a hobby. I would think 20 percent was a little on the high side. It is generally best to have female nurses do the female dorms. Opposite gender nursing is much more complex with females inmates. It saves having a female officer chaperone the nurse. If there is no chaperone then litigation is most certainly possible etc. If it is male nurse or nothing then it is potentially coercive.

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In answer to Blackcat99: I am an ICU nurse of nearly 30 years. I left critical care 2 years ago to work in a maximum security state female prison, and I love it! I started as a staff RN, was promoted to lead RN, then 1 year ago accepted the nurse educator/clinician role. We have nearly 1300 women, and yes, it is taxing at times. Women are more manipulative, but they are also people, and our patients. They are mothers, daughters, wives, and mixed up people. Because I have cared only for women in the correctional setting, I cannot address the difference between men and women there. But I feel I am in a safer situation, as women are historically less violent, and that I make a difference in their lives when I train and nuture my staff. I have no regrets over my career change, and wish I'd done it sooner, actually. I welcome any further way I can be of help in this forum, with a positive view of liking what I do in corrections. Thanks!

Women are less violent for reasons other than history. Men are more manipulative, they are just much better at doing it.

The United States quite possibly incarcerates more women than the rest of the world combined. I am not convinced it is value for money.

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Hi nursecookie.

Sorry to hear you lost your male nurse after only 3 days. It sounds like female inmates are bigger "whiners" than male inmates.Thanks so much for your info. I will definately stay away from "women's prisons":chuckle

:roll

Women inmates do not generally sound like bigger "whiners" than males. If they whined in Texas it would probably not really get them very far.

20 percent female content sounds pretty darn high for the Texas jail you are using as a research tool. I wonder what they arrest them all for?

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