Stopping fights. Clearing the halls. Making sure everything is in order.

For security guard Brian Johnson, these activities come easy to him when he is dealing with students. Unlike other security guards, he has also dealt with many inmates in prison.

“In a classroom, there may be around 33 students in the class. Well, that teacher has to deal with 33 different personalities. Now in a prison setting, we’re talking about a section where they actually live, that’s about 96 different personalities,” Johnson said.

Johnson used to be a Correctional Officer at three different prisons before deciding to come to Watkins Mill High School to be a security guard. He worked a total of 18-19 years before retiring from the prison system in 2009.

Johnson previously resided in Hawaii, and said that before he moved to Maryland, he had to find a job. “I had a daughter and I had to buy Pampers for her. So in order to provide for her I applied for several jobs, and that is the one that called; so I didn’t look back,” Johnson said.

He has dealt with and seen a lot as a Correctional Officer. For example, in a two-day riot, where angry inmates tried to set fires in the prison, Johnson was almost killed.

“I actually had an inmate try to drop a washer and dryer on me,” Johnson said. But luckily, he managed to get out of the situation safely. “It was probably the worst day of my life,” Johnson added.

Many of the other officers were not as lucky as Johnson. The inmates started fires and threw unknown objects at the staff, injuring several people.

Prison was not always a bad environment though. “In prison, 90 percent of inmates want a safe environment,” Johnson said.

Making the transition from being a Correctional Officer to working with students was a very different experience.

“Working in a correctional facility, you don’t trust anything an inmate will say to you because you don’t know what their angle is. When you transition from criminals to high school kids, you tend to go back to what you were trained to do which is not trust them,” Johnson added.

In prison, many inmates try to play, what Johnson calls, mind games with the Correctional Officers. When they want something, men usually turn to the physical side. Women on the other hand, think more about the situations.

Even though dealing with prisoners is a difficult and dangerous job, it can be very rewarding for a person, knowing that they are helping society.

So why would Johnson give up such a rewarding job to work with teenagers? “To be honest with you, summers off was a deal closer,” he joked.