Instructional Designer Corrections Background Required

MCGARITY CONSULTING GROUP; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 76,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

MCGARITY CONSULTING GROUP seeks a corrections training designer to join a federally funded program. You will design, update, and evaluate specialized correctional curricula, developing lesson plans and interactive exercises aligned with policy and standards.

You will collaborate with subject matter experts, ensure instructional accuracy, and guide testing metrics. This role requires a strong corrections background, academy certification, and experience in content development for corrections

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in criminal justice, criminology, psychology, sociology, public administration, or emergency management.
• Corrections academy certification with full details (name, agency, completion date).
• 7+ years of experience across correctional core subject areas, including in-field corrections, content development, and quality control.
• Dual capability across adult learning materials and correctional facility operations.

Responsibilities

• Design, update, modernize, and evaluate specialized correctional curricula.
• Develop lesson plans, course content, and interactive exercises aligned with corrections policy and applicable regulations.
• Deliver authoritative guidance on core correctional subjects and define testing metrics for training effectiveness.
• Validate instructional accuracy of all content before client delivery.
• Work with client subject matter experts and the contracting officer's representative through review cycles.
• Perform quality control on storyboards, published courses, instructor and participant manuals, and assessment banks.
• Collaborate with instructional designers, a graphic designer, an accessibility tester, and a technical writer on multiple courses.

Skills

Corrections experience

Content development

Quality control

Dual capability

Education

Bachelor's degree in criminal justice

Master's degree preferred

Tools

ELB Gold Suite Lectora

Articulate 360

Adobe Creative Suite

Envato Elements

Job description

About the opportunity

We are a woman-owned learning design firm that builds behavior-changing courses end to end for corporate, government, and higher education clients. We are competing for a multi-year federal contract to modernize a corrections training curriculum. The scope includes revising existing e-learning courses, developing micro-learning courses that support annual training, building blended hard-skills courses that combine virtual instructor-led and resident classroom instruction, and revising resident instructor-led curricula. If awarded, this position would be the technical authority on correctional practice for that program. It is not a reviewer role. You would design, update, modernize, and evaluate specialized correctional curricula, build lesson plans and interactive exercises, and set the testing metrics used to assess whether the training works. We are looking for a corrections practitioner who became a course builder. If you came up through a corrections academy, worked inside facilities, and then moved into training development, this role was written for you.

Required qualifications

A candidate who does not meet all four cannot be submitted. Each must be documented on your resume at the time you apply.

Education - Bachelor's degree or higher in criminal justice, criminology, psychology, sociology, public administration, or emergency management. A master's in one of these fields is strongly preferred and affects how the role is classified on the contract.

Note: the Government sets an associate's degree as its floor for this role. We require a bachelor's because every labor category on our federal contract vehicle carries a bachelor's or master's minimum, and a candidate must meet that minimum to be billable. An associate's degree meets the Government's stated bar but cannot be priced. Please do not apply with an associate's alone.

2. Corrections academy certification

State- or agency-certified corrections academy training, completed through a state department of corrections, a county sheriff's office or jail authority, or the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Your resume must name the academy, the certifying agency, and the completion date. An academic degree in criminal justice does not satisfy this requirement. This is the credential you earn as an employee of a corrections agency.

3. Seven or more years of experience

Across correctional core subject areas, and that experience must include all three of the following:

• Recent in-field corrections experience, meaning work inside correctional or detention operations rather than work about corrections
• Development of occupational subject matter content
• Quality control of deliverables

4. Demonstrated dual capability

Deep familiarity with both the development of adult learning materials and current correctional facility operations, including safety and security operations.

Subject areas you would work in

You do not need depth in all of these. You should be able to speak with authority across most, and identify where you would need to consult.

Safety and security operations

Use of force and defensive control; less-lethal weapons including chemical agents, OC, tasers, impact munitions, and restraint equipment; cell search and transport techniques; tool, key, and contraband control; emergency preparedness for riots, escape attempts, hostage situations, and natural disasters; fire safety and evacuation; incident command for corrections.

Behavioral and health response

Suicide prevention and intervention, including early warning signs and immediate response protocols before medical personnel arrive; staff mental health awareness, including recognizing psychosis, severe depression, and neurodivergent behavior among staff; crisis de-escalation and verbal defusing; trauma-informed practice; first aid, CPR, and AED knowledge components.

Legal, ethical, and professional standards

PREA, including investigating sexual abuse in confinement, coordinator roles and responsibilities, audit process and instruments, medical and behavioral health care for victims, and tribal detention facility application; inmate rights and constitutional law covering religious freedom, mail, cell searches, and disciplinary hearings; corrections ethics and standards of conduct, including anti-corruption, professional boundaries, and preventing exploitation of power; addressing inmate sexual misconduct; human trafficking.

Operations, supervision, and leadership

Interpersonal communication with correctional offenders; assigning inmates to housing; jail data analysis; jail inspection; correctional leadership and the role of the correctional manager; deputy warden competencies; coaching in corrections; transition from prison to the community; competency-based performance management and succession planning.

What you would do

• Serve as the technical authority responsible for designing, updating, modernizing, and evaluating specialized correctional curricula
• Develop lesson plans, course content, and interactive exercises aligned with corrections policy and applicable local, state, and federal regulation
• Deliver authoritative guidance on core correctional subjects and define the testing metrics used to assess training effectiveness
• Validate the instructional accuracy of all content produced by the design team before it reaches the client
• Work directly with client subject matter experts and the contracting officer's representative through structured review and approval cycles
• Perform quality control on deliverables, including storyboards, published courses, instructor and participant manuals, and assessment banks
• Collaborate with instructional designers, a graphic designer, an accessibility tester, and a technical writer under a project manager, on a program running multiple courses simultaneously

Preferred qualifications

Preferred Qualifications

• A master's degree in one of the fields listed above
• Corrections academy instructor certification, or experience as an academy or in-service trainer
• American Correctional Association certification: Certified Corrections Manager, Certified Corrections Executive, or Certified Corrections Officer
• Hands-on authoring experience in ELB Gold Suite Lectora, Articulate 360 Suite, Adobe Creative Suite, or Envato Elements
• Working knowledge of Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards as applied to e-learning
• Experience developing content for a jail, prison, community supervision, or juvenile detention agency under a federal or state contract
• PREA auditor or PREA coordinator experience
• Demonstrated track record working remotely on a distributed team against fixed milestone dates

Contingency

This position exists only if we win the contract. Nothing in this description is an offer of employment, and nothing here obligates either of us financially. If we are not awarded, the engagement does not begin and there is no further obligation on your part.

Structure

Contract engagement, approximately 1,860 hours per year, which is full-time equivalent. The program as solicited has a base year, one option year, and a potential six-month extension. We are open to W-2 or independent contractor arrangements and will discuss what works for you.

Location

Fully remote. No travel is currently anticipated. Work aligns to an average eight-hour day within 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Eastern, Monday through Friday, excluding federal holidays.

Timing

The proposal is due in early September 2026. Award is anticipated in the fall. If we are selected, work would begin promptly after award, so we ask that you tell us honestly when you could start.

Compensation

58/hour

About the letter of commitment

• It states that you are available and intend to serve in this role if we are awarded the contract.
• It is not an employment contract. It does not obligate you to pay anything, and it does not obligate us to pay you unless we win and you begin work.
• It is required by the Government. Proposals for this role are not evaluated without one.
• It does not prevent you from pursuing other work while the award is pending. We only ask that you tell us if your availability changes.