DOVER, Del.- As Delaware deals with a correctional officer staffing shortage in prisons, state officials say a new option is being considered to improve safety: reduce the number of inmates in those prisons.
Despite hiking starting salaries for correctional officers to $43,000 and offering signing bonuses, Jonathan Starkey, a spokesman for Gov. John Carney, said the state is considering all of its options to improve safety in prisons while it chips away at a staffing shortage that forces the Department of Correction to regularly force officers to work overtime.
"Another avenue for reducing mandatory overtime in our prison system is to reduce our prison population," he said in an email message. "We are considering all options that will make our facilities safer for officers and inmates."
Starkey would not comment further on the nature of how the state would reduce its prison population, though Geoff Klopp, president of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware, said he had been told by state officials that hundreds of inmates could be moved to other states.
While Klopp conceded the reduction in the number of inmates could improve immediate safety for correctional officers, he said the move would not address the issue of understaffing because it did not boost starting salaries to desired levels.
"Basically the state has been ineffective in their choices in how they've tried to recruit correctional officers," he said.
The issue of staffing levels became a massive point of scrutiny following an inmate uprising at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center near Smyrna, in which Correctional Officer Lt. Steven Floyd was killed.
A report on that incident pointed to understaffing as an ongoing issue at the prison and noted forced overtime was being used to make sure each shift was filled.
Department of Correction officials did not comment Tuesday on the potential transfer of inmates to other states, including how much the move would cost and which states might be involved.
The state currently houses more than 5,000 inmates and offenders awaiting trial. According to the Department of Correction's annual report for 2017, each inmate or offender in the state's system costs taxpayers an average of more than $40,000.
Many inmates housed in the building seized by inmates in 2017's hostage situation have been moved into other states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The state said it is not paying for those inmates to be housed outside Delaware.
Rep. Steve Smyk, R-Milton, a member of the House Corrections Committee, said moving additional inmates out of Delaware prisons is a way to improve safety in the short term, but the cost of housing the inmates in other states is a concern.
"This is not one of those relay or reciprocal agreements where we can take our problem children and put them away and we get some of theirs," he said.
Ken Abraham, a former Vaughn inmate and prison reform advocate with Citizens for Criminal Justice, said moving Delaware inmates to other states could hamper rehabilitation efforts.
"If they move people away from their friends and families, they'll have to travel hours to visit them," he said. "Many of them won't be able to afford to make the trip."
