A legislative panel will consider a plan to activate the Florida National Guard to help short-staffed prisons on Friday.
Just as Florida has struggled with teacher pay – the state is also looking for ways to retain and hire new corrections officers. That includes hiring bonuses, increasing base pay, and the starting salary for trainees to more than $41,000.
Back in January, Ricky Dixon, the Department of Corrections Secretary, told Senators there were almost 6,000 (5,849) unfilled correctional officer positions.
The Putnam County Correctional Institute and Florida State Prison in Bradford County reported vacancies of more than 10 percent. Lawmakers will discuss setting aside $31 million to activate the National Guard to help fill those positions.
The state hasn’t said how many National Guard members it could call to address the issue, but If that happens, it would be for nine months, or however long until the DOC determines the help is no longer needed.
While staffing is down — the number of inmates in state prisons is rising.
According to a recent report from the state Criminal Justice Estimating Conference, there were more than 80,000 inmates in Florida correctional facilities in 2021.
The number of inmates is expected to swell to more than 93 thousand by the end of the next decade.