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| Retirement: A Career in Corrections Comes to an End |
| By tillwater.patch.com |
| Published: 08/31/2011 |
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Stillwater resident Jessica Symmes will retire today as the warden of Oak Park Heights prison. She has worked for the Minnesota Department of Corrections for 35 years. After 35 years of service with the Minnesota Department of Corrections, Stillwater native Jessica Symmes will retire today after serving five years as the warden of the Oak Park Heights maximum-security prison. At 5-feet tall, Symmes will lock down a career working in state prisons that started by filling a maternity leave in the clerical department at Stillwater Prison in 1975, and grew into work as a corrections officer, caseworker, supervisor, administrator and ultimately the warden of the state’s only maximum-security prison. A Career in Corrections Symmes, 56, graduated from Stillwater High School in 1973 and went on to the University of Minnesota to attend the College of Dental Hygiene. “I hated it,” Symmes said of her schooling at the U of M. “It just wasn’t good for me.” So she headed home to the St. Croix River Valley. Her father was a corrections officer at Stillwater prison at the time. He came home from work one day and told his daughter there was a temporary position open in clerical support at the prison. “He sent me down there to get a job,” Symmes said. “Basically, he was tired of having me around the house.” Symmes worked her way up the ranks from temporary employment to secretary of the associate warden. After working with the clerical staff for eight years, Symmes applied for—and was turned down—an office supervisor job. That’s when she decided to complete the Oak Park Heights training academy to become a corrections officer. Her job was to observe and monitor the inmate population, work in the cell blocks, make sure inmate programming was being administered and walk the security rounds, among other things. “I’ve worked in just about every area of this prison as a corrections officer,” Symmes said. “I’ve worked the midnight shift, second watch and the third watch.” In addition to the short commute to work (she harbors a hatred of driving), Symmes was drawn to Oak Park Heights because it is a smaller facility that’s “pretty well staffed.” “I call this the intensive-care unit of the Department of Corrections—and because of that it is more highly staffed and easier to manage offenders in terms of unit size and staffing ratios,” Symmes said. “After weighing that, I decided it would be a safe place to work—we have our days—but for the most part it’s a safe place to work and a safe place for inmates to live.” Read More. |
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