Missouri’s Department of Corrections lack of competitive pay is taking its toll.
We recently published a story detailing serious problems within the department that start with correction officers’ salaries.
These are people, like any law enforcement officers, who risk their safety — sometimes their lives — on our behalf. Within the prisons, they bring order to a sometimes ugly world that we rather never would see.
But their low pay, combined with a good economy, is thinning their ranks.
“It’s a $14-an-hour job, and a lot of the work out there now is $14-an-hour jobs,” said Gary Gross, director of the Missouri Corrections Officers Association. “People won’t do this work for that type of pay. The state has failed to keep up with pay scales.”
As a result, staff shortages are forcing employees to work — and the state to pay for — large amounts of overtime.
Throughout the state, the Department of Corrections has more than 11,200 corrections officer positions. Recently, 700 of the starting-level positions were open statewide.
Gross said inmate tensions are flaring as a result of the shortages. A protest occurred on July 4 at the Tipton Correctional Center, and inmates rioted in the Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron in May. Gross said inmates are calling for a strike on Aug. 21 throughout the state.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said inmates apparently were upset over rules regulating such things as how many inmates can congregate in one place. She said the rules already were in place but recently had been enforced more strictly.
Gross said all state prisons, including the Jefferson City and Algoa Correctional Centers, severely are understaffed.
The Department of Corrections has been aggressively trying to recruit employees. It also has had what it calls a successful supervisor-development program aimed at improving the work environment and at retaining staff.
It’s a serious issue that state lawmakers should address as soon as possible.
News Tribune