ATLANTA — State prison officials said a large number of prison guards quit within two years of getting hired. It’s one of the main reasons state prisons have had so many deaths over the last decade.
In a State Senate hearing Friday, officials described prison work as the toughest and lowest-paying position in public safety.
In 2024, through the end of August, Georgia prisons were the scene of three dozen homicides – inmates and employees. Ninety-eight more people died in prisons from unknown causes.
"It is tough to prepare anybody for that environment, day in, day out," said Tyrone Oliver, commissioner of the state Department of Corrections.
Oliver told state senators that Georgia prisons can only fill about half the prison guard positions they need.
"When you go to work behind the wire, you're working in the most dangerous communities in the state of Georgia, period. I don’t think (new employees) fully grasp that when they’re coming in," Oliver said.
The state has raised the pay of correctional officers, but it’s still lower than that of other public safety jobs like state troopers.
In 2023, 360 state prison employees were arrested for smuggling contraband into state prisons. That same year, officials confiscated 14,497 contraband cell phones from inmates—40 contraband phones every single day across the prison system.
Because of this, prison guards aren’t allowed to bring their own phones into prisons, further eroding the draw of prison work.
"They're husbands, wives, mothers, fathers. They’ve got people they need to be connected to out there. And working inside the facilities, they’re disconnected from them," Oliver said. "And then, also dealing with the environment they have to deal with inside prisons."
Data was also discussed Friday about how other states pay their prison guards and offer potential incentives to help with retention.