NOTE: I've noticed quite a few "hits" on this from Google searchs. Sorry, but the link is no longer valid. The Houston Chron. does archive their articles, so perhaps you can find it there. Sorry for the inconvenience.
From the online Houston Chronicle
AUSTIN — The Neal prison in Amarillo has so few guards working these days that Dorothy Barfoot, a correctional officer, often finds herself working alone in a dorm with 80 to 100 male felons. Sometimes she gets so scared her knees shake.
"Usually there should be two (correctional officers with me), at least," said the 13-year veteran.
But the prison can't find enough people to do the job of guarding inmates in Amarillo or anywhere else.
The Texas prison system is short more than 4,300 guards, with 17 percent of its full-time security positions unfilled. Nearly one in five of the state's 106 prisons operates with fewer than 75 percent of its correctional guards.
Far-flung Fort Stockton, the worst-staffed unit, operates with 59 percent of its correctional officers.
Barfoot's lockup in Amarillo operates with 76 percent of its alloted guard positions.
The prison system has 34 percent fewer guards today than when seven Texas inmates pulled off an escape at the Connally Unit in South Texas in 2000, even though its inmate population has grown 5 percent since then, to 153,000.
Testifying before a legislative hearing last month, Texas Prison Board Chairman Brad Livingston called the guard shortage "critical."
To deal with the shortage, the prison board recently approved a 10 percent emergency raise for new employees, bringing starting salaries to $25,000 a year and $1,500 signing bonuses for those taking jobs at the hardest-to-staff units.
The raises were an attempt to address the fact that Texas guards earned the second-lowest salaries in the nation, according to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The turnover rate for first-year correctional staff is 43 percent.
The signing bonuses were a recognition that staffing shortages are as much about geography as about pay.
Texas prisons were built in some of the most out-of-the-way areas of the state.
Thirteen of the 15 prisons with the most severe guard shortages are in towns with fewer than 15,000 people.
The article also brings up the Dalhart prison, and then there is a msg. board at the bottom of the page. That's what I always find interesting; the reactions of people to these types of topics.
Personally, I wouldn't work in a prison for the new starting salary. Oh, I suppose I would, if there wasn't a single thing left I could work at, but in my opinion, that starting salary needs to be raised again, perhaps doubled. They'd have to quadruple it for me to consider hiring on.
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