ACC’s Corrections Program Holds Graduation Ceremony

12 new corrections officers from several counties around northeast Michigan, including Alpena, Presque Isle, and Iosco Counties, celebrated their graduation from the program after 160 hours of a rigorous course load.

It’s a strenuous four weeks, with book work and a combat training week all included in the program. Today was a celebration of that effort.

“They were very engaged, they were very much in it to win it,” said Dawn Stone, ACC’s Dean of Workforce Development.  “They did a beautiful job, and 160 hours straight in one month in the summer is a tough, tough challenge for most people, and they did a great job.”

For the officers, the work is certainly physically taxing, but a large aspect of it is also mental. A big and very important part of the course was keeping themselves emotionally healthy and creating and maintaining mental fortitude.

“There’s a lot of ways you have to decompress afterwards,” said Dawson Forsythe, new corrections officer at the Alpena County Sheriff’s Department. “Everybody has their own thing; hobbies help. For me, personally, I go to the gym quite often, that’s kind of my release, you need something. A lot of the tactics are involved with finding a release of some sort.”

The graduation ceremony is a fun way to celebrate their accomplishments up to this point, but now the real work begins. The training they have received will have the officers ready when the time comes.

“Even just going through this, I feel like I’d be prepared well enough,” said Forsythe. “It’s a lot of how you speak to inmates, that’s what a lot of people don’t realize. They think it’s, you just open doors and close them and watch them. It’s a lot more than that, a lot more involved, and it touches on just about everything that you could encounter. I mean, naturally, there’s going to be things you don’t, but we’re prepared for it.”

Being a corrections officer means training is also real life experience on the job.

“You really have to go to work to apply what you’ve learned, and they’ve had an opportunity to have some on the job training prior to this education piece, and now they’re going back to apply what they just learned,” said Stone.

Some officers will begin their work as soon as Thursday.