On each floor of the facility where 10 or more inmates are housed, how many inmates must be assigned to one corrections officer?

• A. 5
• B. 8
• C. 10
• D. 12

Answer: (C)

The main idea tested is supervision staffing ratio. To keep inmates under control and ensure officers can respond quickly, facilities commonly use a standard: one corrections officer for every ten inmates on a floor where ten or more are housed. This means the number of inmates assigned to one officer is 10. In practice, you’d apply the ceiling of N/10: for ten inmates, one officer; for twelve inmates, two officers; for thirty inmates, three officers. That’s why ten is the best answer here. The other numbers would violate the policy by either overloading or underloading an officer relative to the accepted ratio, which could compromise safety and responsiveness.