Seminole County jail deputy
Julie Sienko named corrections officer of year.
Deputy Julie Sienko takes a different approach to her job as a corrections officer at the Seminole County Jail.
She sees the inmates not as people who need to be disciplined, but people in need of help. Sienko, 35, will counsel inmates on making better choices when they are released. For her efforts, Sienko was named the Florida Sheriff ’s Association 2016 Corrections Officer of the year earlier this month. The award goes to a corrections officer who “demonstrated exemplary service in the line of duty.”
“I don’t excuse them for anything they’ve done, but it’s not my job to punish them,” she said. “My job is to ‘care, custody and control.’ My job is to help them during that time. Some people forget about the ‘care’ part.”
That’s not to say she doesn’t crack down on unruly inmates or that her colleagues forget about the care part, she added. Sienko said she talks to inmates about job prospects and how to avoid drug use after release. “They are at the lowest times of their life — sometimes their children may be taken,” she said. “I just try to encourage them.”
Another one of Sienko’s goals is making jail operations run more smoothly. She noticed some female inmates were having trouble getting up onto the top bunks. Using her graphic design background, she made a chart of all the beds in the jail divided by area and bunk level. So if an inmate needed the lower bunk, officers would know which cells had them available. She also helps train new corrections officers and used her own money to buy more than 100 books for the jail library.
“Deputy Sienko shows that she has a passion for learning new things and improving old ones,” said Sgt. Michael R. Clement Jr., who nominated her for the award. “She works hard to find new and improved methods to benefit everyone.”