Less than three weeks after two corrections officers were killed, state Secretary of Public Safety Erik Hooks pledged Monday to improve security for people working in North Carolina prisons.

"I am firmly committed to ensuring that the overall health and safety of the staff and our public is our No. 1 priority," Hooks said in an interview with WRAL News.

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Corrections officer Justin Smith and Correction Enterprises manager Veronica Darden died Oct. 12 when they were attacked by inmates at Pasquotank Correctional Institution in Elizabeth City in an escape attempt. Four inmates have been charged with murder in the attack, which left 10 other prison workers injured.

That attack came six months after Sgt. Meggan Lee Callahan was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by an inmate at Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor and prompted David Guice to step down as Department of Public Safety deputy secretary overseeing prisons.

The State Employees Association of North Carolina claims that three prison workers are assaulted per day in North Carolina, on average. Inadequate staffing puts workers at risk inside prisons, the group says.

Hooks doesn't deny that one in every seven staff positions in state prisons is vacant, but he said wardens are hiring corrections officers as quickly as they can. But it's a dangerous job in tough conditions – violent criminals make up a higher percentage of inmates today than they did 20 or 30 years ago – so turnover is high and assaults are up, he added.

State salaries are a major factor in the staffing difficulties. Lawmakers have been trying to raise them in recent years, but they're still below average.

"I can tell you from me that they are valued just as much as our (State Highway Patrol) troopers are, just as much as our (State Bureau of Investigation) agents are ... and just as much value as I place upon the soldiers and men and women in our National Guard," Hooks said of prison staff. "They are highly valued, and I know that we put them in tough environments every day."

Hooks and his staff are now reviewing policies and procedures in state prisons to improve safety and security and has requested the National Institute of Corrections to conduct an outside review of prison operations.

"I am challenging staff to evaluate where we have been less than effective because we don't ever want to be back in this place that we're in right now," he said.

One area he is focused on is specialty work programs such as Correction Enterprises. About 7 percent of inmates work for Correction Enterprises, learning job skills that can help them when they're released, but those jobs can give them access to potential weapons, such as the scissors used in the Pasquotank Correctional attack.

Hooks has suspended violent prisoners from the program while he reviews how prisons decide which inmates can participate.

"From a law enforcement background, it deeply concerns me that an individual that was assigned to this program had previously and within the last few years had actually shot a state trooper," he said.

Mikel Brady, one of the four inmates charged in the attack, pleaded guilty in 2014 to shooting Trooper Michael Potts in the face during a traffic stop on U.S. Highway 70 in Durham the previous year.

Hooks said he supports rehabilitation programs, but safety and security have to come first.