'That fever pitch of fear': Chronic staffing issues now acute in NC prisons

“It’s a more dire issue at these prisons than they’re willing to accept," a correctional officer at one prison, one of two prison workers granted anonymity for this story, told WRAL News. "They are critically short."

The officer said areas that used to have three or four people supervising inmates now often have two. Twelve-hour shifts are typical, and longer ones aren't unusual.

"We’re kind of back at that fever pitch of fear," Watkins said this week.

Commissioner of Prisons Todd Ishee acknowledged Wednesday that staffing issues "are serious, and I'm very concerned."

"We are running a large, complicated prison system with substantial staffing shortages in a very difficult job market," he said. "The prison system is stressed. The staff is stressed."

By the end of 2019, the state had whittled its vacancy rate for correctional officers down to 16 percent system-wide, according to statistics provided by the Department of Public Safety. But, as of this July, it was over 20 percent in raw numbers, even after backing out facilities that have been partially shut down so staff could shift to other locations.

The system's functional vacancy rate that month, a calculation that doesn't just look at open jobs but factors in people unavailable because they're sick, in a COVID-19 quarantine protocol, serving in the National Guard or for other reasons, was nearly 33 percent.

In two facilities, it topped 50 percent, according to a breakdown from DPS.

There's another $5.2 million in the budget to deal with salary compression, boosting experienced officers who'd otherwise see younger ones catch up to their salary level as the step plan is implemented.

Ishee said in a news release last week that he hoped the budget would provide "the tools we need so that we aren't just filling holes, but also recruiting professional-minded candidates and retaining the ones we have."

That release also announced a unit closure at Swannanoa so staff could move 20 miles away and shore up numbers at Craggy Correctional Center on the other side of Asheville.

The House, the Senate and Gov. Roy Cooper all agree: The pay scale is worth doing, and the state has money for it. But the issue is caught up in a wider budget fight, and North Carolina is more than two months past the start of a new fiscal year without an approved budget.

Cooper vetoed multiple budget plans the last several years, so the state hasn't had a full budget since 2018. Instead, they found agreement on "mini-budgets," going one non-controversial issue at a time. Among other things, that meant 2.5 percent annual raises for correctional officers and other prison workers the last two years, plus five extra days of annual leave and a $2,500 bonus in the hardest-to-staff locations.

But a pandemic later, prison staffers told WRAL they're worried and often exhausted. Wages rose in other industries, giving them more options. The current starting pay for correctional officers is between $33,130 and $36,600 a year, depending on whether an officer works minimum- or close-custody.

The average base salaries aren't much higher, according to DPS:

Those are base salary numbers that don't include overtime, which has been substantial as the system deals with staffing issues, or bonuses officers get for serving on emergency response teams.

All of North Carolina's average salary figures are well below the national average for correctional salaries, which SEANC pegged at $47,600 in 2017.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger said Wednesday there are a number of things lawmakers could probably pass right now if they moved to mini-budgets again this year, but state leaders hope to pass a comprehensive budget, funding state government for two years in one document, as was typical before the last few years.

"Would it be better if we had the salary package for prison employees in place now? Yeah, I think it would be," Berger said. "But that's just not where we are."

A number of prisons don't have air conditioning, or at least don't have it in large parts of the facility. It's enough that 38 percent of the prison bed space in North Carolina doesn't get cooled in the summer.

Along with being miserable, the lack of air conditioning means employees and inmates are less willing to wear masks in an effort to stem coronavirus transmission, one prison worker told WRAL.

“You’re like a sitting duck," the worker said. "You don’t know if you’re going to die the next day or not."

Asked about individual deaths recently reported to WRAL, Bull said he couldn’t comment on specifics. But he confirmed three staffers died “over the last few months," and he said their deaths “may have been due to COVID-19, but have not been confirmed so." Because they aren't confirmed, they aren't included in the count.

Other issues are smaller. One officer told WRAL that, at one of the prisons they worked at in recent years, officers didn't have refrigerators for staff to store their lunches. To use the microwave oven, officers "literally have to get in line” with inmates, the officer said.

“Having to deal with 150 issues," this officer said, "the games (inmates) run – the arguing, the fighting, the stabbing – and on top of that, you don’t have a microwave.”

Ninety-seven percent said understaffing had a direct impact on their safety.

Watkins called the 33 percent functional vacancy rate that state prisons hit this summer "wildly unsafe."

But she also said the changes lined up in the legislature are hopeful ones. Beyond the money, there's a proposal to make the corrections division its own cabinet agency again. The department merged eight years ago into DPS, creating one of the largest agencies in state government, and some officers say their problems get less attention as a result.

Watkins said that, every year, she feels "a little more encouraged" by momentum to deal with prison issues. The pay plan, with its promise of annual raises, is "a huge step," she said, but the hole is so deep that it's going to take more money than what's in the proposed budget.

"We are this close to stopping looking at prisons as some sort of warehouse of people and realizing that these are law enforcement officers in there with human beings," Watkins said. "And we have to elevate the respect.”