ACC Holds Annual Correctional Officer Training Over a 4 Week Period

Have you ever wanted to know what it feels like to be in handcuffs? Hopefully not, but this is what it feels like…Correction officers, and correction officer students in training from all of the state of Michigan traveled to ACC for the annual Corrections Officer Academy. Thursday, and Friday’s class was geared towards defense tactics, including speed handcuffing.

“The main time someone will resist is during handcuffing. So the quicker you get the handcuffs on, the better for both, that way they don’t have a chance to fight,” Self Defense Instructor, Michael Brooks said.

A former graduate of ACC and now a Correctional Officer for the Presque Isle County Sheriff’s Department, Alyssa Kortman said having the training is a nice way to gain extra experience.

“This is actually very beneficial. Number one we get to learn actually how to community actually with the inmates. We have so many different types of inmates and we get so many different charges from drunk driving to CSC. There’s certain people you have to learn how to communicate. Some people are soft spoken so, some you have to calm down. You just have to learn how to talk to people. Here it really helps us out with the communication skills, especially if we are in danger. The classes, the handcuffing and the takedowns are really going to help us especially if we are in danger. It comes at any point you never really know when it’s going to happen,” Kortman said.

Kortman adds that she was inspired to become a Correctional Officer to help people.

“I don’t really like to judge people by their decisions because I know we all make mistakes. I like to let them know that. A lot of times you have to communicate with them differently, so the thing I really enjoy is being able to talk to them, helping them figure out actually what it is they need to do. Sometimes they just need someone to talk to,” Kortman said.

Over the course of 4 weeks, the trainees will also learn suicide awareness, prisoner behavior, correctional law, fire safety and more.