The Alabama Department of Corrections’ various pay increases in recent years have improved prison staff turnover rates and, though early, appear to be increasing hiring, a new state report says.
The study from the Alabama Commission on Evaluation of Services looked at multiple salary increases and their impacts on retention and recruitment from fiscal year 2015 through fiscal year 2023. The prison system’s vacancy rate of more than 60% in recent years is one of the cited reasons for violent conditions in several prisons.
But Alabama isn’t alone in prison employment struggles, according to ACES.
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“Nearly every state has experienced a decline in correctional officer staffing over the past several years,” ACES Executive Director Marcus Morgan told Alabama Daily News. “Alabama consistently has a lower correctional officer turnover rate than surrounding states and correctional officers have been less likely to resign after recent compensation and classification changes — nearly a 30% reduction in voluntary turnover.
“However, it is too early to know how these changes have impacted hiring rates, but there is at least some evidence that it is improving post study period.”
The department told Alabama Daily News that since the 2023 pay changes, security staffing has increased by 15.43%, despite historically low unemployment and labor market participation rates.
More time needed
Since 2018, the state has offered one-time, $7,500 bonuses to correctional officers, increased salaries by 5% across the board, increased salary ranges for various job classifications and created another promotion opportunity by adding another classification. Most significantly, in March 2023 ADOC raised starting salaries. A new correctional officer trainee at a maximum security prison now has a starting salary of nearly $57,000, an increase of about $20,000. At the same time, current employees were given 10% pay raises.
The ACES report said since 2019, correctional officer resignations have declined by an annual average of over 4%. Voluntary turnover also decreased among correctional officer trainees by more than 5%.
The increases mean about 140 officers retained, nearly 17% of the current correctional officers, the report says.
Federal lawsuits in the last decade put a spotlight on Alabama’s crowded and deadly prisons and staffing shortages. The state previously couldn’t meet a federal judge’s 2022 deadline to add 2,000 correctional officers. Officials have said the state won’t be able to meet an extended 2025 deadline.
The state’s hiring efforts are paying off, but more time is needed, ADOC Commissioner John Hamm told ADN recently. Between August 2023 and August 2024, the department added 210 security staff, he said.
“Plus 210 is not overwhelming, but it is a positive,” Hamm said about the department that not long ago was losing hundreds of employees per year.
That new number doesn’t include 55 new officer trainees who graduated last week from the Alabama Criminal Justice Training Center, Hamm said. Another class of about 100 starts later this month.
Court-mandated quarterly staffing reports confirm hiring is on an uptick in the first half of 2024.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Mary Sell and originally published by Alabama Daily News. It is reprinted with permission.
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