Story Created:
Mar 6, 2007 at 8:32 PM AKDT
Story Updated:
Mar 6, 2007 at 9:07 PM AKDT
Alaska's ever-growing prison population is putting a strain on the system.
It's not just costing the state more money -- it's forcing the existence of more correctional officer jobs. For months those jobs were left vacant, but now the state says it's heading in the right path.
Right now there are more than 3,000 prisoners in the state of Alaska, with an additional thousand or so housed in Arizona. Keeping watch over that population -- about 740 correctional officers. That number is up from last fall when there were just around 700.
You may remember seeing a commercial where a wife finds out her husband will have to work overtime at a prison, and his daughter is pleading with viewers to let her daddy come home. That commercial was part of a campaign by the Alaska Correctional Officers Association to draw attention to the state's shortage of officers.
Things have gotten better. The Department of Corrections has changed its hiring process, and now it is close to filling its recruitment goal. Officers are working less overtime, and that's having a positive effect on their work environment.
Phillip Klaas, correctional officer, said, “You can set the tone. If you come in all grumpy yourself, you can set the tone, so you need to be diplomatic, you need to have people-person skill. Not everybody is cut out to do this job."
Joe Schmidt, Department of Corrections commissioner, said, "I think we're looking for people skills, people that have good character, people that can deal with other people well. That's the most important thing."
The state has a total of 780 correctional officer positions, and right now about 742 of them are filled. So it seems like they are missing 38 people, but it's really only eight.
That's right the Department of Corrections says it expects about 30 jobs to always be open. Those are jobs where people are retiring or leaving and just can't be filled right away. Ideally all 780 would be filled, but the state says it knows that might not be attainable.
