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By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, June 05, 2008
State closes part of W. Texas prison because of guard shortage
Closure a sign that pay raises aren't working
Amid warnings that Texas' chronic shortage of prison guards is compromising security and public safety, officials said Wednesday that they are closing part of a remote West Texas prison because they don't have enough guards to properly staff it.
It was the third such move in recent months and signals that the guard shortage is not improving significantly, despite recent pay incentives for new hires that have reduced the guard vacancy rate slightly.
"It's the greatest challenge we currently face," Brad Livingston, executive director of the Department of Criminal Justice, told a joint Senate-House hearing Wednesday.
At the hearing, prison officials said they are closing a 334-bed wing of the 1,375-bed Lynaugh Unit in Fort Stockton that has been operating nearly 40 percent short of staff.
Testimony during the hearing indicated that large amounts of contraband — cell phones, illegal drugs and tobacco — are being brought into state prisons by guards who are being bribed by convicts. A cell phone can bring $400.
"For seasoned correctional officers who take home just $1,900 a month, who are being overworked in an increasingly dangerous environment and having trouble making ends meet, the temptation is great," said state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. "We don't have enough correctional officers to properly search the staff coming on to the units and, if we did, I'm told we might lose as much as 10 percent of our staffing."
The problem runs much deeper, he said, because the agency is hiring guards with questionable qualifications.
"We'll take almost anyone who signs up," he said.
Add to that the remote location of many state prisons, the lack of housing and the low pay, "and you see the dangerous situation we're in," said Whitmire, who has led the oversight committee for well over a decade. "The lack of staff means more inmates are locked in their cells more often, without programs, without recreation, without treatment."
House Corrections Chairman Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, said he was concerned about reaching a critical point.
"When does shutting down beds at some units no longer ... fix this problem?" he asked.
Both the Lynaugh Unit and the nearby 606-bed Fort Stockton Unit have been operating short of staff for months — because of a housing shortage in Fort Stockton, where the high price of oil has spawned many jobs that pay much more.
Last fall, the agency closed a 300-bed dorm at the Dalhart Unit because of a staffing shortage. Later, it "re-purposed" parts of the huge Beto Unit in Northeast Texas from administrative segregation to general population status, which takes far fewer guards. All those units are critically short-staffed, April reports show.