NC says it’s last in the nation in paying prison officers. How can it fill jobs?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- The Department of Adult Correction reports an overall vacancy rate of 18% agency-wide.
- Correctional officer vacancies average 30% statewide, with some prisons at 60%.
- Republican leaders have discussed a proposed 15% pay raise for correctional officers.
Battling low pay, high stress and long hours, the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction is trying to fill vacancies, which take up about a fifth of the agency.
To fill the vacancies, the agency is holding hiring events where applicants can receive conditional job offers the same day, as well as advertising in local churches, community colleges and on social media. The department must compete with higher-paying local and federal corrections positions, as well as lower-stress jobs.
Salaries for correctional officers start at around $37,000 and max out at around $54,000. North Carolina is ranked dead last nationally for state correctional officer salaries, according to the agency.
Republican leadership in the state legislature have discussed a 15% raise for correctional officers in initial budget framework talks. Keith Acree, a spokesperson for the agency, told The News & Observer that the raises “will be extremely helpful and a good start — if it becomes reality.”
“However, we also need raises for all of our staff working behind prison walls, to recruit new people and retain the experienced staff we have,” he said. “A raise of [15%] would still leave us behind many local jails, and only bring us up slightly in the rankings compared to other state corrections systems.”
While 18% of positions are vacant agency-wide, the average vacancy rate for correctional officers is 30%. Some prisons are seeing 60%.
There are 229 vacancies for nurses across the agency — about 33% of positions.
Several people sat filling out applications at a hiring event on Thursday at Central Prison in Raleigh. Central Prison Warden Jamel James told The N&O that while on paper, the vacancy rate there is about 38%, “functionally, I’m probably about 45” percent because of employees in preliminary and training stages.
Central Prison vacancies
James said vacancies cause longer hours, burnout and high stress among current employees. He said staffing challenges impact the employees’ ability “to stay focused, to stay security-conscious, to make the right decisions.” About 80% of the employees in Central Prison work 12-hour shifts.
“Judgment is impaired in those times,” he said. “ ... Somebody is not going to sustain a high level of standard that I want them to keep up with in a dangerous environment like this.”
In 2017, four employees working at Pasquotank Correctional Institution died after the deadliest escape attempt by inmates in the state’s prison history, according to past reporting by The N&O.
James said 12-hour shifts are “not conducive to sustained productivity for longer periods of time” and make it difficult for employees to find childcare options.
He added that a 30-year career on a 12-hour shift is not sustainable and can cause mental and physical health problems. Hiring additional staff members could get schedules back down to eight hours.
James said the entire hiring process and basic training for Central Prison is around 12 weeks in total, “best case scenario.”
If applicants receive a conditional job offer at a hiring event, the next steps are drug screening, medical examination and a final background check before a new employee orientation.
James said he makes sure he introduces himself to new employees and applicants and connects them “to the fact that, yes, you’re gonna have challenges in corrections, and you gotta have the right attitude ... and the right character to come in here and to produce and perform at a high level.”
“I don’t want to manipulate them, I want to help them grow and be able to face the challenges that are ahead, and that only works if we have an up-close relationship,” he said. “I do that with everybody coming through the door.”
Potential new employees
To work in adult corrections, James said, important values to have are ethics, good character, and “you gotta be committed to the organization, committed to yourself.”
“You have to be resilient personnel. Someone that can deal with pressure and change in priorities and emergencies, and be able to respond,” he said. “Not everybody can be a correctional professional, and we definitely know that. We identify that, but it helps when you have some type of pre-structure, and I think that starts at home with the family.”
James, who hails from New York City, said he personally was inspired by his aunts and uncles, who were police chiefs. He started as a corrections officer, then became a sergeant, lieutenant and assistant lieutenant.
James was made warden at Franklin Correctional Center in 2021, then warden at Central the next year.
“I’ve definitely grown to love what we do here: the partnerships, fire departments, the local hospitals, the families of the offenders, the staff that’s here, seeing the facility taking shape,” he said. It’s the good and the bad I’ve come to enjoy.”
Jerome Yow has been working at car rental company Enterprise for three years. On Thursday, he was seated in Central Prison filling out an application.
Yow’s dad is a sergeant at Central Prison.
“I got my own path. I got my eyes set on something bigger,” he said. “I’m just hoping for the best.”
Franklin Uzodimma, another applicant, said he had never worked in a field like corrections before.
He said he wants to be a correctional officer.
“I like seeing people corrected from their bad behaviors,” he said.
This story was originally published June 8, 2026 at 1:33 PM.
