2024 New Jersey Corrections Officer Exam Preparation

New Jersey State correction officers fulfill a truly vital public duty. They ensure the custody, safety, and care of criminal offenders imprisoned in correctional facilities across the state. As part of this professional role, they perform a vast and diverse range of duties which include:

• Providing public safety through the custody and management of individuals who are incarcerated within the Criminal Justice system.
• Ensuring the welfare and safety of the staff and inmates.
• Assisting in the rehabilitation of the incarcerated individuals who will return to their lives in the community.
• Promoting public support for the objectives and operation of the Department of Corrections.

As you can see, correction officers perform tasks that are crucial to public safety. For this reason, the pre-employment screening process for this job position relies on very distinct psychometrics. Learn more about civil service testing in NJ here.

How to Become a Correctional Officer in NJ

Your hiring process for the position of correctional officer in NJ will consist of a few simple steps. First and foremost, along with other job seekers for this position, you will have to meet some prerequisite requirements they are:

• Being a high-school graduate with a high-school diploma or its equivalent.
• Being at least 18 years of age.
• Being a US citizen.
• Being a New Jersey resident.
• Maintaining residence in your NJ municipality for at least six months prior to your employment. Please, note, that not all NJ municipalities require this.
• Having a valid New Jersey driver’s license.
• Undergoing an extensive background check. This includes checking your employment history, driving history, domestic violence history, and criminal history.
• Undergoing a medical check. This includes thorough medical and psychological examinations.

If you are certain that you meet all these criteria, your next step is to prepare to excel at the correctional officer test. This will help you to secure an average annual correctional officer salary of up to $83,000 and reap all the other benefits of civil service employment, such as government health care coverage and a pension plan.

What to Expect from the NJ Correction Officer Exam

The New Jersey Department of Corrections is the civil service employer for all aspiring correctional officers in New Jersey. As such, its assessment center determines the hiring criteria for the job. Along with a traditional job interview, it requires that all candidates take the EB Jacobs Law Enforcement Aptitude Battery.

The LEAB test is a multiple-choice assessment that evaluates your aptitude for the job of a correction officer. The format of the exam has three main sections.

Section One: The LEAB Ability Test

Within this section of the test, you will have to answer 50 multiple-choice questions. All of these questions evaluate your general cognitive ability. They do so through the assessment of how well you can apply the following basic cognitive abilities:

• Deductive reasoning – Are you able to implement a rule or a principle to make sense of specific cases and situations? Learn more about deductive aptitude tests.
• Inductive reasoning – Can you generate a rule or a principle out of the essence of a specific case or situation? Read more about inductive reasoning tests.
• Reading comprehension – Are you able to adequately understand written material?
• Writing competence – Can you express yourself accurately and clearly in writing?
• Problem-solving – Are you able to deal with problem situations? Can you analyze conflicting evidence and interests, in an unbiased, logical fashion, with adherence to rules and procedures?
• Information processing – Do you find it easy to organize information logically? Can you use the information to structure your course of action?

It is not uncommon for examinees to take up to 2 hours to complete this section of the test.

Section Two: Work Style Questionnaire

This is essentially a personality assessment test. You will have to provide your answers to statements about your personality traits. You will then have to rate these statements depending on how much they apply to you. This test includes up to 100 various statements. All of them determine whether your personality style suits the demands of the job of a correction officer.

Section Three: Life Experience Survey

This part of the test consists of up to 70 questions. All of them give you a chance to showcase yourself as a person to your potential employer. Your answers containing information about your prior life and work experiences may significantly improve your chances of successful employment.

How to Prepare for Your Correction Officer Exam NJ

Exam preparation may not be easy to organize, but certain study aids may be helpful.

For instance, online practice with free Civil Serice example questions can give you the feel for your correction officer exam. Same can be accomplished with the help of practice correctional exams. Finally, study guides containing detailed explanations and case studies of exam questions and answers can be very helpful.

All of these methods combined will help you to significantly improve your scores.