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Prisons are in need of correctional officers and they’re turning everywhere for help. I’m Brian Banmiller on Business.

Nearly one-third of federal correctional officer jobs across the country are vacant. These are people employed to guard inmates. So to fill the hole, prisons are turning to cooks, teachers, nurses and other workers. In 2020, the Justice Department budgeted for about twenty thousand full time officers. But the agency running prisons says right now it currently employs only about fourteen thousand. And the void is being felt. At a federal penitentiary in Texas, inmates are locked in their cells on weekends because there are not enough guards to watch them. In Illinois, one of the most understaffed prisons in the country, has seen five inmates die of homicide or suicide since March of last year. Those officers who are employed are working sixty hours overtime a week, getting sick or burning out. The hiring agency says its holding regular recruitment events and offering incentives for hard-to-fill positions, but with a starting salary of forty-three thousand dollars and spending your days working behind bars, the resumes aren’t flying in. Brian Banmiller, CBS News.

About Brian

CBS News Radio national business journalist Brian Banmiller has spent more than 40 years in the news industry, covering business, politics and the economy on television, radio and in print. Currently, his “Banmiller on Business” reports are delivered to an audience of millions nationwide.