Occupation / job
Correctional Officers and Jailers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
The $58,940 midpoint sits $4.28 an hour above the $50,020 typical American job. That is a 18% premium, and premiums are rationed: whatever rations this one is the thing standing between you and Correctional Officers and Jailers.
380,500 people work as Correctional Officers and Jailers — large enough that the occupation is always hiring somewhere and always losing people somewhere else. Constant demand is security; it is rarely leverage.
Law enforcement suits people who can be the visible authority in a hostile moment and then write it up accurately afterwards, knowing the record will be read adversarially.
We carry no verified training length for Correctional Officers and Jailers — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
From $48,640 to $75,850 is $2,267 a month, or 1.6x bottom quarter to top. An ordinary spread like this is mostly years and geography; assume you enter near the bottom of it and that closing the gap takes a career rather than a move.
The bottom quarter of Correctional Officers and Jailers earns under $48,640, which is within $1,380 of the $50,020 typical American job. An occupation whose 25th percentile is level with the national middle has an unusually forgiving downside.
Avoid it if you could not accept that your worst thirty seconds may be reviewed for years afterwards.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 380,500 people employed as Correctional Officers and Jailers; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
At 1.6x between $48,640 and $75,850 this is a normally shaped occupation. $58,940 is what the middle of Correctional Officers and Jailers earns after the years it takes to get there, which is not the same as what it offers you now.
In cash terms the middle half of Correctional Officers and Jailers runs $48,640 to $75,850 — $27,210 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $58,940.
Getting to $75,850, the 75th percentile, is worth $16,910 a year more than the $58,940 midpoint and $27,210 more than the $48,640 a quarter of Correctional Officers and Jailers settle for.
It is $10,300 from $58,940 down to $48,640 but $16,910 up to $75,850. When a range leans this far upward, the interesting question is what puts someone in the top half, because the money is disproportionately there.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Correctional Officers and Jailers is $28.33 an hour. The quarters sit at $23.38 and $36.46, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Correctional Officers and Jailers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $58,940 describes them.
The hourly number on this page is $58,940 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Correctional Officers and Jailers, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else