The jail usually has a retention rate of less than 50 percent. Over a recent 18-month period, the jail hired 158 new officers. Only 74 are still employed. Forty-two veteran officers resigned from their positions over that same period. In exit interviews, correctional officers cite excessive overtime hours, low salary and a volatile work environment as their top reasons for departing.
Salaries are a major complaint.
It's unfortunate, because we have gotten so used to working the overtime. The best thing that could happen is to become fully staffed at the pay we have right now. There would be such a huge uproar, they would have to give us a raise. New Mexico is especially sensitive to the conditions in its correctional facilities because of the 1980 riot at the Penitentiary of New Mexico, says Mark Donatelli, a prominent Santa Fe prison-rights attorney. They were short-handed and that paved the way for the problems that led to the riot.