Why Prisons Don't Have More Correctional Officers Than Inmates

Prisons are notoriously short-staffed, a condition that plagues correctional facilities across the nation. This issue is primarily due to budget cuts and the fact that correctional officers are underpaid. This article explores the reasons why increasing the number of correctional officers to outnumber inmates is both impractical and unrealistic.

Unrealistic Comparisons

Understanding why prisons cannot have more correctional officers than inmates requires a closer look at comparable service models. For instance, consider health care facilities, educational institutions, and agricultural settings. In hospitals, it would be absurd to have more doctors and nurses than patients. Similarly, schools wouldn't employ more teachers than students, and farms wouldn't hire more workers than livestock. The same principle applies to prisons: having more officers than inmates would be illogical and impractical.

The Impracticality of Having More Officers

Consider a prison with approximately 2,200 inmates. At the largest prison in the state, there are over 4,000 inmates. It's easy to imagine the logistical challenges of having such a high number of officers. Would this number of officers achieve anything meaningful? The primary goal of correctional facilities is rehabilitation, which requires a different set of professionals such as psychologists, counselors, and teachers.

The cost of employing these additional officers would be prohibitive. According to recent data, staff costs comprise about 83% of the state's correctional budget. Doubling or tripling the number of correctional officers would multiply the costs by a factor that would almost certainly lead to the collapse of the entire system. If we were to increase the staff by just a hundredfold, the financial burden would be insurmountable. This makes it clear that the current staffing levels are already a significant strain on the system.

The Staffing Crisis in Prisons

The current shortage of correctional officers is dire. Many prisons are staffed with just one or two officers for every 120 inmates. This critical understaffing leads to a revolving door problem, where it's difficult to keep up with the turnover rate. Many prisons are in immediate danger of being unable to maintain operations due to a critical lack of officers, which can result in inhumane conditions and safety risks for both inmates and staff.

The Scale of the Problem

To understand the magnitude of the staffing issue, consider a single facility: the Cook County Jail in Chicago, which has an average daily population of 6,100 inmates. If we scale this up to the entire United States, which consists of approximately 3,100 counties, imagine the number of correctional officers required for each prison. In addition, we have the federal prison system, which houses over 1.4 million inmates in 2018. The wages and benefits alone for such a large workforce would be a financial catastrophe for the federal budget.

Conclusion

The imbalance between the number of inmates and correctional officers is a complex issue driven by budget constraints and underfunding. Solutions like increasing the number of correctional officers to outnumber inmates are simply not feasible. Addressing this challenge will require a multifaceted approach, including financial investments, alternative rehabilitation programs, and a restructuring of the correctional system to focus on long-term success for both inmates and society.