Solving the Carceral Understaffing Crisis: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why
Most prison systems and jails are understaffed, with serious consequences for both the keepers and the kept. In facilities with too few guards, staff members typically have to work longer hours or multiple shifts in higher-stress, more dangerous environments. But at least they get to return home at the end of their shifts. Prisoners who live in such conditions bear the brunt of staffing shortages, which include lockdowns and having to forgo recreation, religious, educational, and other programs—even visitation and medical appointments.
The non-profit Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) examined this issue in a December 9, 2024 report, Why Jails and Prisons Can’t Recruit Their Way Out of the Understaffing Crisis. That found detention officials universally agree that lack of adequate staff is a significant problem. Between 2020 and 2023, the number of workers in state prisons nationwide fell 11% while the workforce in local jails dropped by 7%. In total, there was a loss of 64,455 detention employees during that three-year period—which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, though understaffing plagued the criminal justice system long before then.
Prisons and jails have concentrated on recruitment efforts such as wage increases, which have mostly been unsuccessful or insufficient. Detention staff already earn high wages in comparison to other blue-collar professions. With a GED or high school diploma as the only educational requirement in many states, guards received median annual wages of $53,300 in 2023, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That amount had increased by 12.5% since 2020 as recruitment efforts ramped up, not including overtime pay (which can be considerable). On average, prison and jail employees earn more than roofers, loggers, and construction workers, even though those professions have much higher rates of job-related fatality.
As with wage increases, recruitment methods such as hiring bonuses and perks like staff wellness programs haven’t worked. For example, Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail, “which has a lot of problems—including that it hasn’t had enough staff for many years—deployed hiring bonuses and the highest salaries of any sheriff’s department in the state but still struggles to fill positions,” PPI reported. Similar efforts have failed to relieve understaffing in state prison systems.
Some detention agencies have lowered the minimum age and increased maximum age requirements for hiring guards, without much success. Building new prisons and jails to create safer and more attractive work environments hasn’t solved the problem either; once constructed, they still must be staffed. PPI cited Denver, Colorado, which “spent millions to renovate a jail and improve working conditions and still can’t fully staff it.” Florida and West Virginia have even mobilized the National Guard to help oversee their understaffed prisons.
Although not mentioned in the PPI report, the influence of unions that represent prison and jail guards is a contributing reason why detention officials narrow-mindedly focus on recruitment to address staff shortages. Unions have a financial incentive to maximize their membership, and hiring more guards accomplishes that goal.
So what would work to solve understaffing? PPI makes the compelling argument that decarceration—reducing prison and jail populations—is the only workable, long-term solution. When there are fewer prisoners, fewer facilities are needed to house them and fewer employees are needed to run those facilities.
“Many of the issues for which ‘understaffing’ is blamed are fundamental to mass incarceration, and are best addressed through decarceration—not a jobs program for corrections officers or further investments in surveillance and imprisonment,” PPI concluded.
Decarceration includes strategies like ending cash bail to decrease the number of people held in jails, increasing parole rates and other forms of early release, and reducing arrests—such as by decriminalizing certain types of low-level crimes. However, these measures are also highly unpopular among tough-on-crime politicians and entrenched detention officials. That makes them unlikely to be implemented anytime soon, leaving the carceral understaffing problem perpetually unresolved.
Source: Prison Policy Initiative