Under the medical model, it would be logical to assume that job-related responsibilities for inmate treatment might be accompanied by a demand for expanded educational requirements for custodial personnel; however, correctional officers were never as poorly trained or undereducated as during the decades when the medical model dominated public policymaking. The clear distinction between the "blue-collar" workers responsible for security and the better-educated and more "professional" personnel dedicated to rehabilitation spawned a caste-like system. Hence, "custodians" were impeded from experiencing the types of job advancement that many forward-thinking leaders of an earlier era had envisioned. As public support for the medical model diminished by the 1980's, the expanded role of former "guards" that had been envisioned decades earlier ironically began to take shape. Staff development priority shifted toward those who "interact most with inmates, serve as role models, and either support or sabotage institutional programs" (Stinchcomb, 1985). Although training prerequisites have progressed somewhat from the 100-hour entry-level recommendation of the National Advisory Commission in the early 1970's, educational mandates have not advanced at the same pace. The percentage of agencies that require no educational preparation for employment as a correctional officer remained essentially unchanged at 10 percent from 1978 through 1994 and declined slightly to 7 percent in 2001. Although a number of agencies surveyed in 2001 indicated that they give preference to those with some college, only 5 percent actually required any postsecondary education, a decline from the 20-25 percent that supposedly did so in 1991 and 1994. There are indications that correctional education and training are not high fiscal priorities under the conservative emphasis of the justice model. To the extent that corrections suffers from serious recruitment and retention problems, there may be pragmatic grounds for keeping educational requirements low for correctional officers, regardless of prevailing policy models. 1 figure and 56 references