How to become a Correctional Officer in Puerto Rico: requirements, pay and the Academy

What a Correctional Officer does

The Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (DCR) announcement defines it as “custody work consisting of the protection of lives and property inside a correctional institution or another Department facility.” It is a career position in Puerto Rico's public service, not a temporary contract.

First, two working conditions worth facing head-on, because they disqualify more people than the academic requirements. The first: you must own a motor vehicle in good condition and hold a current Puerto Rico driver's licence. It is not “knowing how to drive”; it is owning a car.

The second: availability to work outside regular hours when required, including Saturdays, Sundays, holidays and rotating shifts. A correctional institution never closes. If your life cannot absorb rotating shifts, think about that before you apply, not after.

The requirements, exactly as DCR states them

What follows comes from the official DCR announcement published on empleos.pr.gov. It is not our interpretation:

• Education: fourth-year high school graduation or its equivalent, from a licensed or accredited institution. No university degree required.
• Age: minimum 18 years old, maximum 40.
• Weight in proportion to height and age, per the height-and-weight-by-age table for men and women.
• Vision: 20/40 in both eyes without glasses, and 20/20 with glasses.
• Being physically, mentally and emotionally fit to perform the duties of the position.
• A motor vehicle in good condition and a current Puerto Rico driver's licence.
• Citizenship: only U.S. citizens and foreign nationals legally authorised to work qualify for public service.
• Completing the Correctional Officer Training at DCR's Ramos y Morales Academy.

What it pays

Announcement DCR-2026-2027-03, signed on 13 August 2026 by the Designated Secretary, lists $28,200.00 a year as the entry base pay, on Scale 1 of the Rank System. The probationary period is twelve (12) months.

That figure is the position's starting point, not a ceiling: in Puerto Rico's public service, pay moves through scales, seniority and whatever collective agreements apply. It also excludes shift, holiday and out-of-hours pay, which in a rotating-shift job is not a minor detail.

When a new announcement comes out, the salary may have changed. The binding figure is always the one in the current posting on empleos.pr.gov, not a guide, and not a Facebook post.

How you are scored: the exam is 100 points and you already know the breakdown

This is the most useful thing in the whole announcement and almost nobody reads it. There is no question-and-answer test: your score is assigned by evaluating your paperwork, and DCR publishes the exact breakdown.

The exam is worth one hundred points: seventy percent for meeting the minimum requirements, twenty percent for work experience beyond the minimum, and ten percent for education beyond what is required, or courses and training directly related to the position's duties.

Read that again, because it changes your strategy: thirty of every hundred points come from things that are not mandatory. A crisis-management course, a first-aid certificate, experience in security or dealing with the public; that is score most applicants leave on the table by not documenting it.

And note one detail: the announcement says all relevant experience is considered “regardless of when it was obtained.” That experience from twelve years ago counts. Put it in.

The detail almost nobody knows: an AI screens your resume

This cycle's DCR announcements state in plain words that the initial evaluation of the application and the resume is done “with the assistance of artificial intelligence,” and that this assistance ranks candidates in descending order by how closely each one matches the position.

This is not a conspiracy theory or a rumour: it is in the official text of the announcement. And it has a very concrete practical consequence. If your resume describes your duties in words different from the announcement's, a system that compares by match will score you lower than someone with less experience but better wording.

That is why DCR is explicit about what it wants to see in the resume, and it pays to give it exactly that: degree conferred or number of credits completed, university institution and graduation date; position held, exact dates the experience was acquired (preferably day-month-year) and number of hours worked if part-time; a brief description of the duties and nature of the work; and your skills and abilities.

“Exact dates” and “number of hours” are not bureaucracy for its own sake: without them they cannot count your experience, and experience is twenty percent.

Statutory preferences: if one applies to you, you skip ahead

The announcement establishes that any candidate who meets the minimum requirements and also holds a statutory preference “will be automatically advanced to the telephone validation stage.” That is a real advantage, not decoration.

The preferences the announcement names are: veterans under Act 203-2007; qualified persons with disabilities under Act 81-1996; beneficiaries of government economic assistance programmes under P.R.O.W.A. (federal Public Law 104-193 of 1996); and members of the Uniformed Services, the State Guard, and civilian employees of the Corps of Engineers.

If you qualify, be ready: the agency will ask for documentation proving it. Have your DD-214, certification or corresponding document ready when you apply, not when they call.

The Ramos y Morales Academy

Passing the announcement does not make you a Correctional Officer. The announcement requires completing the Correctional Officer Training given by the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation's Ramos y Morales Academy.

Plan for that period the way you would plan for a new job, because it is one. DCR gives the details on length, location and schedule to candidates who advance; ask when you are summoned, rather than assuming based on what an acquaintance who went through it a few years ago told you.

Corrections is not only custody

DCR recruits considerably more than custody officers. In the same 2026-2027 cycle it posted Social Worker announcements (requiring a provisional licence from the Social Work Professionals Examining Board and a driver's licence) with positions at the Ponce Social Treatment Centre and the San Juan Multifamily Services Centre.

Psychology, health, administration and maintenance positions also come up at the institutions. If your profile is professional rather than custody, the door to DCR is open just the same, and the officer post's age and vision requirements do not apply to you.

They are all published on empleos.pr.gov. We collect them and list them here as they appear.

How and when to apply

DCR positions come out by announcement, with a closing date. It is not continuous recruiting: if you miss the date, you wait for the next one.

Announcement DCR-2026-2027-03 accepts applications from 8 September 2026 through 21 September 2026, with 150 openings across the institutions of the Bayamón Correctional Complex. It is an entry-level competition, open to the general public.

You apply on empleos.pr.gov, submitting the employment application together with your resume. Create your account and have your documents scanned before the next one opens: your diploma or equivalent, your driver's licence, and evidence of any statutory preference.

And if you would rather be told than keep checking: create an alert by category and town on our site, and new announcements reach your inbox as they come in.