Judge who sold juveniles to jails gets 28 yrs

[Brownshoe]

(09-06-2015, 11:55 AM)Benton Wrote:

Guard salary is a bit skewed when you look up the average, which is around $37,000 for state guards across the country. It's skewed because just like any company, those at the top make considerably more. And they aren't typically in the union, they're the administration guys.

Starting salary for a guard, depending on state, averages between $19-24,000 per year. Those are the high priced union guys you two are referring to.

I work in a community with two prisons, both state run. One maximum security, one low/medium. Both start their guards at $9.58. That's about the same starting pay at the gas station near one of them (it hires cashiers for $8.50). And used to the guards would decline state insurance as it cost too much.

Anyway, that's part of why there's no cost savings with outsourcing prisons. The bulk of labor cost is in administration, the same guys who authorize and do the support work to make outsourcing possible are the same salaries that make up the bulk of employee pay.

holy shit $9.58!? was that back in the late 1980s? In Ohio Correction officers start out at $16.35 for state prisons, or at least that's what it was in 2010 when I started. I wouldn't work at a prison if it started out at $14. I think it's funny that people get angry at state union workers "making too much money". It's like they don't care about the middle class. Everyone who has a high paying job who works for the state isn't in the union. And don't give me that crap about CO's shouldn't make that much money, because that job is a pain in the ass. You have to watch hundreds of murderers and rapists with only one other partner, and the only thing you have is a man down button and a PR 24 (a guard stick). Not to mention you have to go through a crap ton of training. It's not an easy job like most people think it is.

FWIW Ohio privatized their food service for their prisons, and there has been a HUGE decline in quality. The chow service runs slower. The portions are smaller. The inmates are way more unhappy, and that causes more incidents. The private companies employees have been caught bringing stuff into the prison for the inmates more times than I care to remember. There's been multiple reports of maggots in the serving area. Inmates are able to steal the food a lot easier from the private food service making it cost more on the state (the state has to cover the cost on any extra food the private company has to provide). It has been a huge mistake privatizing the food service in the prisons. I can only imagine what it would be like if the whole prison was under their control.