North Carolina Prisons Are Facing a “Dire” Staffing Crisis
Data from the state Department of Adult Correction (DAC) shows that 14 facilities, roughly one in four prisons across the state, operate with half or more of their guard positions vacant, according to reporting by North Carolina Health News.
Throughout North Carolina’s 55 state prisons, vacancy rates range from a low of 5% to nearly 69%. The problem is so bad that DAC Secretary Leslie Cooley Dismukes recently told state legislators that the agency’s “dire” staffing situation has “grown higher and remain(s) at unsustainable levels.”
Part of the North Carolina prison system’s staffing crisis has to do with the agency’s low pay. Guards in the state can expect a starting salary of only $37,621, the second-lowest rate in the country. In neighboring Southeastern states, entry-level guards can expect to earn an average of nearly ten thousand dollars more. Currently, the DAC employs 4,979 guards—and, as Dismukes claimed during the legislative hearing, the agency requires almost twice that number to be considered fully staffed. At a minimum, she said, the DAC needs 4,651 guards to staff “critical posts,” leaving it with a margin of only 328 guards that it can lose to burnout and poverty wages.
Hiring and retaining guards is a “dire” issue in nearly every state and, with nearly 31,000 vacancies annually, shows no sign of subsiding any time soon. In the meantime, prisoners and detainees suffer the consequences, as understaffed prisons are, among other impacts, more dangerous, more prone to lockdowns, and offer less programming.
Source: North Carolina Health News
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