Is it the same as National Correctional Officers and Employees Week?

Yes, it is the same week. The Senate added "and Employees" to the name in 1996, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons calls its own observance Correctional Workers' Week.

Is it the same as National Police Week?

No. Police Week is the week containing May 15, alongside Peace Officers Memorial Day on the 15th, while the correctional week is the first full week of May.

Why is it held in the first full week of May?

Congress picked that week in 1984 to coincide with the American Association of Correctional Officers convention held May 6 to 12 that year, and almost every designation since has followed it, the June 2001 one excepted. No law makes the pattern permanent.

National Correctional Officer’s Week

Next celebratedSunday, May 2, 2027

American prisons and jails held 1,852,900 people at the end of 2023, and the staff who watch them get one week of recognition a year. Agencies mark it with awards and memorial services.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

--DAYS

--HRS

--MIN

--SEC

Last updated September 1, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEFirst Full Week in May (Sunday to Saturday)

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYCareers

SUBCATEGORYFirst Responders

ORIGIN

Legislative Resolution

FOUNDING ENTITY

United States Congress

FIRST OBSERVED

1984

“The statute designated "the week beginning May 6, 1984" and nothing beyond it.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A week Congress had to pass one year at a time.

Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr. of Michigan introduced the joint resolution in July 1983, and it became Public Law 98-238 on March 20, 1984, designating the single week beginning May 6 that year. Ronald Reagan proclaimed that week on May 5, 1984, and every week honored after it required a fresh act of Congress.

Read Reagan's 1984 proclamationvia Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

INTRO

A recognition week with no line in the statute book

The last president to proclaim National Correctional Officers Week was George Bush, and he did it in 1989. The presidential document archive records none after that, under that name or either of the two the week has picked up since.

Police Week, one week later on the calendar, does not depend on anyone remembering. Congress wrote a standing instruction into Title 36 of the U.S. Code in 1962 asking the President to proclaim it "each year".

The correctional week never got a line like that. Every proclamation it received needed its own act of Congress, and Congress stopped passing them.

What remains is a working week that the profession keeps on its own. The people it recognizes are responsible for the 1,852,900 people American prisons and jails held at the end of 2023, and the week now runs on agency ceremonies, governors' proclamations, and union statements rather than on anything from Washington.

ORIGINS

Correctional Officer’s Week history

INTRODUCTION

In the early 1980s the federal government did not have a flattering word for the job. Reagan's proclamation put it plainly: correctional officers had "historically" been "viewed as 'guards,' occupying isolated and misunderstood positions in prisons and jails."

Congress had already written down the same diagnosis. The founding law's preamble states that public perception of the role "is more often based upon dramatization rather than factual review," which is an unusual thing for a statute to say out loud.

CHAPTER 01

The senator from Michigan

Donald W. Riegle, Jr. put the first one in. He introduced Senate Joint Resolution 132 on July 15, 1983, and it moved slowly, passing the Senate by voice vote that November and the House the following March.

The resolution also explains why the week sits where it does. Its preamble notes that "the American Association of Correctional Officers will be holding its annual convention May 6-12, 1984," and Congress designated exactly that week. No later instrument ever made the pattern permanent.

CHAPTER 02

Four proclamations, then silence

The rhythm never settled. Reagan proclaimed the week again in 1985, then in 1987. George Bush did it once, signing his proclamation four days after the week it covered had already started.

The gaps are recorded in Congress's own text. Each new law listed the years the profession had been honored before, and those lists skip 1986 and skip 1988. The legislature was quietly confirming what it had failed to do.

CHAPTER 03

A longer name and a quieter Congress

In 1996 the Senate widened the week to cover everyone inside the walls, agreeing by unanimous consent to a resolution that called it National Correctional Officers and Employees Week. Senate resolutions followed most years through 2003, then House ones through 2007.

After that the record thins to almost nothing. Representative Rick Crawford tried twice, in 2022 and 2023, and both resolutions died in committee without a vote. Both described the week as something merely "recognized," which is now the honest word for it.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Congress designates one week

Public Law 98-238 named the week beginning May 6, 1984, and asked the President for a proclamation.

Reagan proclaims it again

Proclamation 5337 covered the week beginning May 5 and called officers the backbone of the correctional system.

A year with no week

Congress designated nothing for 1986 and in November approved a law covering the following May instead.

The last proclamation on record

George Bush issued Proclamation 5976 for the week beginning May 7, under a joint resolution that became law that same month.

The name grows

A Senate resolution designated the week as National Correctional Officers and Employees Week for the first time.

The final designation

Senate Resolution 24 named the week beginning May 4, the last located instrument to designate the week.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Correctional Officers Week by the Numbers

4: Presidential proclamations since 1984
0: Federal Register entries, correctional week
34: Federal Register entries, Police Week
56: Senators cosponsoring the 1996 renaming
149.1: Corrections violent victimizations per 1,000 workers

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Correctional Officers Week Matters

STAFFING

Almost a quarter of federal officer posts sat vacant in 2024.

The Congressional Research Service puts the Bureau of Prisons correctional officer vacancy rate at 24 percent in fiscal 2024, against 9 percent in 2010. To cover the gap the Bureau assigns teachers, nurses and counselors to custody shifts, a practice called augmentation that reached 718,174 hours in fiscal 2025, the highest in a decade.

MEMORIAL

It is when the federal system reads out its dead

The Bureau of Prisons holds an annual service at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington for its twenty-seven fallen employees. The 2026 ceremony added Supervisory Correctional Systems Specialist Marc Fischer of USP Atwater, who died after exposure to a narcotics-laced letter sent to the institution.

LABOR

The unions use it to argue recognition is not enough

AFSCME, which represents corrections workers among its 1.4 million members, issues a statement every year that turns the thanks into a demand. Its president Lee Saunders wrote in 2026 that officers are "working short-handed, forced into constant mandatory overtime, and expected to do dangerous jobs with less support."

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Correctional Officers Week

One law arrived after its own week had ended

Public Law 99-31 designated the week beginning May 5, 1985, and was signed on May 14, three days after that week finished. Reagan had already proclaimed it on May 10, four days before signing the law that authorized him to.

The same prisoner count was reused for five years

The clause describing officers as responsible for "over six hundred thousand prisoners" appears word for word in the 1984, 1986 and 1989 laws. When Congress finally refreshed it in 1993, the figure read over 1,200,000.

In 2001 the week was moved to June

Senate Resolution 92 designated the week beginning June 3, 2001, the only designation on record that misses May entirely. It was not submitted until May 21, after the usual week had passed.

A 2016 barbecue ended with a perimeter

Staff at the Riverside Regional Jail Authority in Prince George, Virginia were mid-cookout for the week when a suicidal and homicidal individual was reported about 100 yards away. They evacuated, helped police secure a perimeter, then moved the food indoors so colleagues who had not eaten still could.

Federal projections have the job shrinking

The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects correctional officer and bailiff employment to fall 7 percent between 2025 and 2035, a loss of 29,900 positions.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

Ronald Reagan established the first full week of May as a permanent national observance.

The truth

Proclamation 5187 proclaimed one week, the week beginning May 6, 1984, and nothing more. The recurring pattern is custom, not law, and Congress's own recent resolutions call the week "recognized" rather than designated.

The myth

Correctional officers have a life expectancy of 58 years.

The truth

PolitiFact rated this False in 2011. MetLife, the company the claim is credited to, could not find the study, the Society of Actuaries keeps no such data, and the one thorough analysis it found, a Correctional Service of Canada study of Canadian public service workers, put retired male officers' average life expectancy at 77.5 years.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Correctional Officers Week

Attend a correctional workers memorial service

The Federal Bureau of Prisons holds its annual service at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington. State systems and county jails run their own ceremonies during the same week.

READ

Read the founding proclamation in full

It runs to five short paragraphs and takes about two minutes. The Reagan Library copy carries the Federal Register filing stamp, timed at 12:50 p.m. on May 7, 1984.

CHECK

Check whether your governor issued a proclamation

State executives, not the President, are the officials who now proclaim the week. Several issue one every year, and the text usually names the correctional agency and its staff directly.

RECOGNIZE

Recognize the staff who are not officers

The Senate widened the name in 1996 precisely because a prison runs on teachers, nurses, cooks, counselors and clerks as well as custody staff. Naming them individually is closer to what the week was rewritten to do.

Follow what the workforce is asking for

The unions publish a statement every year setting out staffing and pay demands alongside the thanks. AFSCME's 2026 release is a short and specific example.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Correctional Officer’s Week?

1 / 7

Which president signed the first National Correctional Officers Week proclamation?

Answer

No. It has no standing federal recognition and appears nowhere in the list of patriotic and national observances Congress has written into permanent law at Title 36, sections 101 to 148, so it is a normal working week.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

22sources

20primary records

19independently dated

Primary records

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library1984-05-05

Proclamations, May 5, 1984

The full text of Proclamation 5187, with its Federal Register filing stamp.