Steven Dominguez

I'm not going to be here for the rest of my life.

You know, so a lot of people didn't make it out of a class of four hundred and fifteen, four hundred and twenty.

I want to say three sixty graduated maybe.

So, you know, you feel a little prideful, you know, and ironically, there's more women than there are men in this graduating class.

After this graduating class, two months after another graduating class comes and it's constant for my students.

First two years on probation as a New York City correction officer, classes are coming back, back, back, back.

And I'm like, okay, my seniority level is rising.

My first day on Rikers, eh, you know.

I heard an alarm.

It wasn't in my housing area.

I was able to go to my housing area, which was a dormitory setting.

I had to relieve the B officer.

There's an A officer and there's a B officer.

The A side of the dorm is 50 inmates.

The B side of the dorm is 50 inmates.

That B officer has to go back and forth

to make sure things are okay.

If they need the hot pot open for hot water, if they need the slop sink open to clean up a mess, he or she is in charge of opening the day room, turning on the TV, putting on the phones on the phone jack to make sure that everything is working on both sides.

A hundred inmates to one officer is a lot of, you know, that's a lot of eyes on you.

So your first couple weeks, it's like you got to perform.