WV NEEDS CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS - Retention A Big Issue

(08/18/2011)

West Virginia is looking for a few good correctional officers. Most of the state's correctional officers who quit this year cited grueling overtime for their decision to leave, according to jail officials. Right now the system is 105 officers short of 2,000 the state's regional jails need to maintain operation and safety. The problem is retention. Most correctional officers work about 20 hours of overtime each week. At the South Central Regional Jail, 152 officers resigned over the past three years, said jail director Stephen Tucker. The jail should be staffed with 81 correctional officers. Now it has 66. "You can't add positions for the existing people to work because you've already got people walking out the door faster than you can hire them because of the overtime," Tucker said. It is not uncommon for correctional officers to complete the hiring process, including a background check and an aptitude test, to quit within their first week, said Tucker.

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