Title: Workforce Issues in Corrections | National Institute of Justice
Headings: Workforce Issues in Corrections
Workforce Issues in Corrections
Nature and Scope of the Problem
Research Purpose
Methodology
Needs and Themes
Clarify the mission of the corrections sector
Improve staff competencies in corrections environments
Improve staff training
Improve work environment and conditions
Develop future leaders
Shifting the paradigm
About the Author
Figure 1: Top Tier Needs
Cite this Article

Content: It is reprinted with permission of the American Correctional Association, Alexandria, VA. All rights reserved. Hardly a new issue, the ongoing difficulty finding and retaining good staff has intensified to the point where many jurisdictions are now in full crisis mode. [ 1] For example, Kansas and West Virginia have recently issued state of emergency declarations in response to understaffed institutions. [ 2] Correctional officer vacancy rates in some prisons approach 50% as of late including two Mississippi institutions. [ 3] Although community supervision agencies typically fare better, probation and parole officer vacancy rates have been reported as high as 20%. [ 4] And in some state prisons, annual correctional officer turnover rates as high as 55%, test the system’s essential functionality. [ 5]
Given the shrinking pool of qualified workers, agencies often compete for candidates, and the sector, for a variety of reasons, appears to be losing the competition for talent. To address the corrections workforce shortage, the RAND Corporation and the University of Denver (DU) analyzed insights from a work group of agency executives and academics who have researched the correctional workforce. This work, sponsored by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), identified a series of 64 systemic needs, with 13 top-tier needs associated with the following five themes, described in more depth below: