From The Marshall Project:
When Andrew Phillips took a job as a corrections officer at Georgia’s Smith State Prison in 2021, he was desperate for work. Shortly after he started, he noticed a problem. The prison housed about 1,500 men, and each shift was supposed to have 30 officers to guard them, but most days there were half that, according to Phillips.
He said he and his colleagues often had to work 16-hour days, five days a week. We just had no energy, we didn't have the ability to care,” Phillips said. The mandatory overtime, combined with constant violence against both staff and incarcerated people, led officers to quit, he said, “The place was too brutal, too disgusting.”
Prisons across the country have long struggled to recruit and retain staff, but the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the situation is particularly dire. In 2022, the number of people working for state prisons hit its lowest mark in over two decades. Continue reading >>>
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