Guarded: Surviving as a Female Prison Officer: A Memoir

A woman brave enough to walk out on an abusive husband then enters a paramilitary culture of mostly male prison officers in order to support and raise their infant son.

At twenty-two Susan Jepsen found the strength to walk out on an abusive husband with only twenty dollars in her pocket and their infant son on her side. For the next twenty-seven years, Susan had a successful career in the Department of Corrections and achieved four separate promotions - despite her continuing struggles in this male dominated world of sexual harassment and political retaliation. Guarded is the true expose of an environment that fosters manipulation and nepotism, where your most dangerous enemy is not the male prisoners you guard, but your fellow staff. In that stress filled world Susan wanted to rely on her fellow officers to watch her back and while that sometimes was possible in the cells and prison corridors with the inmates, it was not always possible in the back offices and casework rooms with her fellow staff. Susan had to learn the hard way to watch her own back against the unwanted sexual advances of her fellow male - and sometimes female - staff. Guarded gives an intimate, insider's view of the hidden world of prison staff, a world society does not want to think about, a secret world in which mainstream society is not welcome.