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Braden Westerman

Mrs. Jackie Burr

English 2010

16 February 2017

Profile of Everrett Westerman

Everrett Westerman is a twenty-one year veteran of the Utah Department of Corrections.

Over this time, he has held multiple positions within the department. Each position has brought

with it a variety of different experiences. In Corrections there are basically two types of jobs,

those working inside the prison fences or those working outside the prison fences.

The first three years of his career were mostly spent in Security Enforcement. This bureau

of the department provided outside security for the prison property. Some of his main

responsibilities during this time included clearing fence alarms, checking the fence for damage

and alarm malfunctions, ensuring that no contraband had been thrown over the fences, checking

visitor identifications for any outstanding warrants and making arrests if any were found,

searching vehicles leaving prison property for any inmates attempting escape, and providing

security at hospitals when inmates were admitted. While he was working in the Vehicle Direction

Station (the main gate or check in point that the public goes through), he had a few crazy

experiences. These include arresting a visitor because the vehicle they were driving was stolen,

finding a meth lab in the trunk of a car, and arresting a mother for bringing in drugs to her son

who ended up dying because he swallowed one of the balloons of heroin which burst in his

stomach.

The next seventeen years he worked in the Transportation Unit. His main responsibility

in this department was transporting inmates outside of prison property. This included
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transporting inmates to courts, hospitals, to and from Gunnison and Draper State Prison, and

county jails all throughout the state. Five years into this position he became a Field Training

Officer for the unit teaching new hires how to do the job and teaching classes about the job to the

cadets at the academy. Because of his time spent in courts and hospitals he has learned a lot

about them. He has learned a lot about the judges and knows about them, unlike most people.

Something that bothers him is that judges are elected by the people when most people know

nothing about them. He wishes that information about the judges would get out and inform

voters.

It was in the Transportation Unit that the reality of the dangers of the job hit home for

him and his family. The first occasion happened when a van full of inmates being transported by

two of his co-workers crashed. The crash was so horrific that several people were life flighted

from the scene including, one of his co-workers. His injuries were so severe that they were not

sure if he would make it or not. However, they still had a job to do. They had to secure the

uninjured inmates and travel with the injured to hospitals. On top of this, some of the inmates in

the van were members of gangs and death threats to the officers involved in the crash were made

by those gangs. Because of this his unit also provided around the clock security for their co-

worker that was near death in the hospital. His co-worker ended up living but the long term

damage was severe enough to end his career as an officer.

Unfortunately, the second instance he faced didnt end well. It was a routine transport of

an inmate for a MRI that ended up being anything but routine. The MRI procedure had been

completed and his co-worker was securing the inmate when the inmate tried to gain control of

his weapon. His co-worker was shot twice, once in the torso while wrestling for the gun and

then once in the head while lying there defenseless. The media broke in with the news story that
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an officer had been fatally shot and an inmate was on the loose. His wife had heard the news and

frantically tried to reach him on the phone to make sure it wasnt him. She had never been so

happy to hear his voice as she was on that day. All he said was, it was Steve and that it didnt

look good. He was on the road in the middle of a transport himself. All remaining transports

were cancelled for the day and the officers were sent home to be with their families. The

incident affected him and his wife in different ways. He was angry. He was angry with the

inmate that had killed Steve and he was angry with the department because they were aware that

officers had felt that MRI procedures should be a 2 officer per inmate transport due to the

unsecure nature of the procedure. The feeling around the office was that it was going to take

someone dying before the policy would change. Unfortunately thats exactly what it took to

change the policy. Not only were MRI procedures made 2 officer transports but all transports

were now 2 officer transports. That helped ease the worry of his wife some but she still battled

with the fact that it could have been her husband and she felt guilty for being overjoyed that it

wasnt her husband, even though another wife and family was going through the pain. After the

funeral came hard work. The transportation unit staff was being doubled to incorporate the 2

officer policy and all of the new hires needed to be trained. The next few weeks they had to

work very long hours. But the worst part of it was they were told they had to transport the

prisoner that killed Steve. It wasnt easy but they did it.

If Everrett could have stayed in the Transportation Unit for the rest of his career, he

would have. But with a new director came new rules. The new director instituted a policy

requiring staff to move to another position if they had been in their current position for more than

3 years. So he became an agent with Adult Probation and Parole. He has been an agent with

AP&P for a little over a year. He meets with offenders that are on probation or parole. This
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involves meeting with them monthly, making sure they are enrolled and attending any treatment

or programs necessary, performing random drug testing, performing home visits to assure

compliance, documenting any criminal activity, and searching for those that are not reporting as

required. He supervises 50-70 offenders and often finds there is not enough hours in the week to

get everything done that needs to be done. Everyday brings something new that needs to be dealt

with and that and will usually derail the plans made for the rest of that day. It is a constant

juggling act.

Since the policy requiring staff to move to another position every 3 years is still in effect,

hell have less than 2 years before he will need to find another position to go to. He thinks this

new policy is a bad idea because it doesnt allow people to become well experienced and do what

theyre good. With them having to change position every 3 years they will constantly have to

learn new things and be inexperienced. The Department of Corrections needs more employees

but has a hard time because of the pay. The pay for an officer hasnt always been great but lately

its been worse. They used to have really good benefits but recently the state has put less funding

into this and the benefits and retirement have dramatically decreased.