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Staff shortages force NC to temporarily close three prisons

State officials said Tuesday that they plan to close three minimum-security prisons in the coming weeks to shore up staffing and improve safety at other prisons.

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By
Matthew Burns
, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor, & Kasey Cunningham, WRAL reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — State officials said Tuesday that they plan to close three minimum-security prisons in the coming weeks to shore up staffing and improve safety at other prisons.

Operations at Hoke Correctional Institution in Raeford, Tyrrell Prison Work Farm in Columbia and Odom Correctional Institution in Jackson will be suspended for an undetermined period so 450 staffers can be shifted to other prisons with too few officers, officials said.

More than one-fifth of the correctional officer positions in North Carolina's 55 prisons are vacant, officials said. The understaffing affects daily operations, limits the ability of staff to take leave and attend training and hinders the delivery of programs to inmates, they said.

"Unfortunately, we’ve lost about as many as we’ve hired," Tracy Little, deputy secretary for the state Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice, said Wednesday regarding corrections officers. "The reason the department has made this decision is to improve safety for our staff. That is the No. 1 driving point for this decision."

Staffing problems were cited are a contributing factor in the 2017 escape attempt at Pasquotank Correctional Institution in Elizabeth City that left four prison workers dead. An outside investigation found the prison was so understaffed that workers cut corners, such as leaving doors unlocked, not keeping track of tools issued to inmates and not frisking inmates after their work in the prison sewing plant was done.

Limited staff also burns out remaining corrections officers, Little said.

"They have been doing a tremendous job over many, many months, working mandatory overtime, taking time away from their families, things that people who don’t work in the prison take for granted," she said.

Redeploying staff to nearby prisons and moving an estimated 1,500 inmates to other minimum-custody facilities across the state will happen in phases over the next four to six months, said Jerry Higgins, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety. The agency will re-evaluate the three facilities’ status six months after each location closes.

Hoke Correctional will be the first to shut down, but Higgins said the exact timeframe of the closure cannot be disclosed because of security reasons.

Little said officials looked at the condition of prison facilities and the impact on staff in determining which ones to close.

"We looked at several factors," she said. "One, as I mentioned, was proximity to other nearby prisons because we do want to mitigate the disruption to our current employees as much as we possibly can."

Sen. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, who has pushed for prison reforms since the Pasquotank Correctional incident, said he's already heard from families concerned about the reassignments and possibly longer commutes.

Higgins said other minimum-security facilities statewide have enough space to absorb the 1,500 inmates from the three prisons without any overcrowding.

Other changes that will take place over the next few months include the following:

  • Designating Anson Correctional Institution’s male minimum-security facility as the South Central region’s re-entry facility, replacing Hoke Correctional.
  • Returning Neuse Correctional Institution from a female facility to a male medium-security facility, primarily for inmates with chronic health conditions.
  • Shifting Hyde Correctional Institution from a male medium- and minimum-security prison to house only minimum-security inmates.

A Senate committee Steinburg heads plans to meet next Monday to get input from state officials on the decision to close the three prisons.

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