PRISON OFFICER ONLINE RECRUITMENT TRAINING COURSE

The main duties of a Prison Officer include:

• Carrying out security checks and searching procedures.
• Supervising the prisoners that they are responsible for.
• Maintaining order when required.
• Accounting for the whereabouts of prisoners.
• Carrying out relevant restraint procedures whenever necessary.
• Treating prisoners decently and humanely, respecting their rights when appropriate.
• Protecting prisoners from harm.
• Promoting anti-bullying and suicide prevention policies.
• Taking part in education and rehabilitation schemes for prisoners.
• Writing reports on prisoners.

You can usually apply to become a prison officer online via the website www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk. From this website you can also search for Prison Officer jobs in your preferred area. The Prison Service will sometimes use the website www.whatsontheinside.co.uk as their main recruitment portal.

If you meet the minimum eligibility requirements, your application will be acknowledged by email as soon as you submit it. You will then be invited to sit an online version of the Prison Officer Selection Test, which is more commonly referred to as the POST.

Once your application has been accepted you will be sent a link via email to take an electronic online version of the Prison Officer Selection Test (POST). This stage of the POST consists of numerical tests, comprising of a number of work sample exercises. You won’t, however, require any prior knowledge of prison work in order to undertake the test.

Within a later section of this guide I have provided you with plenty of sample test questions to help you prepare for the POST.

If successful at the online POST stage, you will then be invited to attend the Recruitment Assessment Day (RAD).

The Recruitment Assessment Day has been designed to test several elements that are needed in the Prison Officer role – these include;

• 4 role-play simulations, each lasting a maximum of ten minutes.

The scenarios that you will encounter during the role-plays are usually non-prison based. However they are similar to situations you could face as a Prison Officer.

As part of the Recruitment Assessment Day you will also be required to complete a shorter paper-based version of the online POST that you previously sat.

The second element of your Recruitment Assessment Day Prison Officer Selection Test is a paper-based language test, which includes some observational skills questions that assess the following key areas:

• Completing forms and reading information;
• Checking information for errors and discrepancies;
• Carrying out written observations of seen information.

Candidates are normally required to take the fitness test during the Recruitment Assessment Day. The test itself is designed to assess some elements of a Prison Officer’s role and consists of the following assessable areas:

Following the successful completion of all previous elements of the selection process, you will then undertake a medical and vetting checks. The medical will assess your overall health and fitness for becoming a Prison Officer. The vetting checks are standard procedure and include identity checks, nationality and character checks and a criminal record check. These checks can take up to 8 weeks to complete so you will need to be patient.

Once you have passed every element of the selection process you will normally be offered an appointment and starting date. However, in some circumstances, you will be placed on a reserve list, which has a validity of 18 months. As soon as a vacancy becomes available you will be offered a place.