New Hampshire Prison System Struggles to Hire Guards
Typically, the New Hampshire Department of Corrections (DOC) graduates two classes of prison guards from its training academy each year. But in August 2025, there were so few candidates that the DOC canceled the most recent class and, as a result, did not hire any new guards, as The New Hampshire Bulletin reported.
The cancellation highlights the long-standing staffing crisis within the state’s prison system, which currently has a roughly 47% vacancy rate for guard positions. In 2023, recruiting and retaining staff had become such a challenge that the DOC deployed members of the New Hampshire National Guard to assist guards. Now, according to DOC Commissioner William Hart, the agency has implemented mandatory overtime for guards and the rate of burnout is high.
To boost recruitment, Hart has enacted policies such as offering a $10,000 sign-on bonus to new guards and holding a one-day hiring “blitz” where applicants can do most of the pre-academy onboarding more quickly. Despite these efforts, the DOC will likely continue to be under-staffed for at least another year, as the hiring and training process takes around 10 to 12 months.
New Hampshire is hardly alone in struggling to maintain staffing levels in its prison system. As PLN reported, vacancy rates are at a crisis level in state prisons across the county, with as many 31,000 positions unstaffed. [See: PLN, Sep. 2025, p. 1]. And the situation at the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is just as dire, with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) poaching a sizeable number of its guards. Last year, amid Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants, ProPublica reported thatthe BOP lost at least 1,400 more guards than it hired.
A prison operating without enough guards leads to more lockdowns, less programming, less healthcare, and other staff such as teachers and psychologists being forced to work as guards.
Sources: The New Hampshire Bulletin, ProPublica
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