Felicia Lemelle

I attribute all my success to God, and then also just my determination and grit. Even though I did have a medical disability, and sometimes I was tired, I just kept going. I just felt like I had to keep going because I knew I was on a mission. I always felt like I'm not gonna let that disease stop me from working or stop me from being the best person I could be. You know, I was on dialysis for 8 years, and I had to think about how I was gonna balance dialysis with work, but I just never let it hold me back. My determination to keep pushing forward, despite the obstacles, is what got me through.

I had a captain, his name was Captain Borkin, and he told me that if you really want to do something, you'll go up for it, or you'll continue to work for it, despite how many people are telling you no. He always told me just to work hard for it, and as long as you're doing your job and doing the right part, you'll get it, you'll make it happen. I also learned from watching my parents, who worked all the time. I've never seen a day that they're not working. They were my role models because my dad would go to work, my mom would go to work, playfully every day. I had a lot of good mentors while in TDCJ, and even my parole supervisor now is awesome. She knows her policies and her stuff, so I always try to pick her brain and learn from her too. But the best advice was from my captain: if you want to learn something, you'll make it happen. You're determined to make it happen.

I would tell them that criminal justice is so diverse. You can have a degree in criminal justice, psychology, social work, sociology, because it's more to it than people think. It's not just about laws and stuff. There have been situations where I just had to be an ear, where I had to talk to people and just talk them down. So I would say it's a really diverse field, and if you're really interested in it, it's a really good field. I tell people all the time, the jails don't ever close. Certain things about our field are just 24 hours. And if you're gonna get into that field, talk to somebody about it, make good networking connections. There's nothing wrong with networking. Talk to people if you're interested in that. It's just so much stuff that we can do in our field, so just don't limit your options. Be open to everything that's available.

The biggest challenge for us is retaining people in the agency. A lot of people that get in the agency, they see the job we do, and they just quit. They say, oh no, I can go get paid and do something else. I hear this a lot: people say they don't like working here, they can go do something different. In our division, there's a high turnover rate with people wanting to quit because they feel like they can go do something different with the same stress. Unfortunately, people can go work from home now, they can work these different office jobs, work 8 to 5 and go home. With our profession, we have to stay during hurricanes, storms, and everything. Some people are like, I don't have to do all this, I can just go home. They don't want to stay here when a hurricane is coming. So it's just retaining people in the agency that's our biggest challenge.

For me, it's a work-life balance now. I've been doing this for 10 years, and this is the longest I've ever been off. I have never been off for 5 months. I'm realizing that I need to start taking time off for myself and also making sure my work is done. Right now, some of my values are spending more time with my family, making sure that they're good, and then also just taking care of my health. My health is my number one priority right now. I was going a little stir-crazy being off for that long, but everybody's like, you need it, just relax, you'll be fine. It's about finding that balance between work and taking care of myself and my family.