The common area of the women's pod is filled with portable beds due to overcrowding at the Vanderburgh County Detention Center in Evansville in this 2019 fill photo. Staff file photo by Denny Simmons
EVANSVILLE — In the midst of a broader hiring crisis spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, detention facilities continue to struggle with staffing, an issue that predates the ongoing public health emergency.
“It's hard to attract people to work inside of a jail knowing the jail is a rough environment," Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said.
Local and state staffing issues reflect a trend in the industry at large, including shortages at the federal level. In November, the Indiana Department of Correction raised base pay at state prisons to $19 an hour in an attempt to draw more applicants.
Wedding said that despite the pay, benefits and job security — a starting pay of around $40,000 a year, free health insurance and a retirement pension, among other benefits — the "negative environment" prompts resignations and keeps many would-be applicants away, except for those people looking for a stepping stone into law enforcement.
He said applicants use the experience as a confinement officer as a "stairstep to become a police officer." Wedding said he did exactly that; after being hired in 1981 as a confinement officer, he moved into the role of deputy sheriff after just over two years.
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He estimated that the Evansville Police Department has recruited at least 20 former confinement officers over his tenure as sheriff. He said his office also recruits from within and has recruited close to 30 deputy sheriffs from jail staff.
Henderson County Detention Center Jailer Amy Brady said she used to see the same trajectory among HCDC hirees, but not as much anymore. And among applicants that aren't planning an eventual move to law enforcement, most aren't banking on a long-term career in a detention facility.
“Nowadays you don't find that," Brady said. "You don't find the people that are looking at a career in law enforcement that want to start in the jail. You don’t find people that are committed to whatever profession or job they're hired into. A lot of people, I've noticed, live for today. They live in the present, you know, what's important right now.”
“We know that corrections is one of the most stressful jobs that there is," she said.
Wedding added that industry visibility also plays a role. While movies and TV often glamorize careers in law enforcement or firefighting, he said, you don't usually hear children saying they want to be a "jailer" when they grow up.
"No one really talks about a prison guard or a jailer, because what they're doing is they're babysitting the trash of the world,” Wedding said. “It’s sad because they do that, you know, and so there's nothing sexy about it or exciting about it.”
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Fully staffed, the Vanderburgh County jail employs 108 confinement officers; Wedding is currently working to fill between 10 and 12 open positions.
"We've used almost every recruiting tool that I could think of," he said, including advertisements, social media, college visits and word-of-mouth.
Applicants must undergo testing, background checks, psychological evaluations and drug tests during the hiring process.
Brady said that while her facility is approved to hire 100 full-time and three part-time employees, they are currently operating with less than 50 employees.
“It’s hard times right now," Brady said. "Everyone’s competing, as far as their base wages and the benefits provided.”
Paying employees via tax dollars means the HCDC cannot offer sign-on or referral bonuses to lure interested parties, as in some other industries.
After Brady took the jailer position in 2017, the Henderson County Fiscal Court approved an increase in base pay from $12 to $14 an hour to compete with nearby facilities that paid more than the Henderson facility. But not long after, other facilities' pay rates increased, as well.
Wedding said another difficulty in attracting applicants to the Vanderburgh County jail is its size; he said that lighter workloads and lower capacity at facilities in neighboring counties are often more attractive than applying to work in a comparatively busier, higher-capacity jail like Vanderburgh's.
Brady and Wedding said the effects of the ongoing pandemic aren't helping matters, either. They cited unemployment payments, stimulus checks and tax refunds as part of why people who may be out of work due to the pandemic aren't applying to just any job.
“Truthfully, would you come work in a jail and do what our employees do every single day for $14 an hour when you could stay home with your family and be paid?" Brady asked. "It’s sad.”
But Brady said that working in a detention facility can change and challenge you.
"It makes a difference in how a person feels about the thankless job that they do in corrections when they see someone that has made a change in their life," she said. But "$14 an hour for people to come work in an environment that is typically a negative environment” isn't enticing enough, she said.
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