IDOC RAISES STAKES IN EFFORT TO ATTRACT MORE STAFF - WILL QUALITY SUFFER FOR THE SAKE OF QUANTITY?

On November 1, 2021 KQXR radio 100.3 FM in Boise, ID reported that the Idaho Department of Correction was now offering new employees a $1,500 signing bonus, a starting salary of $19.00 an hour and an annual retention bonus of $1,500 for up to 5 years. While the pay and bonus rates may well entice any number of applicants to apply to work at the IDOC, it is quite often the case that with an increase in quantity there is a corresponding decrease in quality. This is certain to happen here.

The IDOC has been whining for more than a year they don't have enough staff to fill the positions left vacant by guards (and others) who have moved on. As has been reported on this site, many guards at the ISCC reportedly resigned because of the way the facility was being run by [then] Warden Jay Christensen. Though Christensen is gone, many of his policies and attitudes still exist - like administrators continuing to allow some inmates to do things which not only violate departmental policy - but grants these inmates authority to override an officer's decisions.

Many guards are loathe to work with new staff, believing the new guards won't or can't back them up in emergency situations. Newly hired guards, some as young as 18 years old, are sometimes posted on their first assignments in some of the most dangerous areas of the prison. Officers who are in such bad physical shape they can barely walk up a flight of stairs are relied upon by their colleagues to protect their very lives and while hiring the mentally challenged may be in vogue and politically correct, it does not make for a safe or secure prison environment for anyone - staff, prisoner or the public.

Will IDOC again lower the physical and/or mental standards for applicants to simply fill uniforms in the effort to address staffing shortages? Will dangling taxpayer dollars in the face of people who actually make more money sitting at home than if they work outside the house be effective? Unfortunately, it's only when one (or more) of these new guards has a meltdown while on duty, refuses to back-up a fellow officer in an emergency, turns out to be a chronic drunk or more of a crook than the prisoners they are guarding that the department and taxpayers will finally realize the truth that some of us have known for quite some time... the IDOC already has enough guards - there are just too many prisoners.