The Prince George’s County Department of Corrections wants to remove 100 inmates from the county’s jail as overcrowding and understaffing cause overtime to climb millions of dollars over budget, department officials told County Council members Thursday.
In the last three years, the county’s jail population has risen from about 1,200 inmates to about 1,500, but staffing levels have failed to keep up, causing violence to rise and conditions to plummet, corrections officials said. The 583-member department has 47 vacant positions.
Six civilian positions will not be filled in response to the countywide hiring freeze and the department’s effort to shave about $560,000 off its $68 million budget.
It also has become increasingly difficult to fill vacancies and expand the staff, partly because the county’s starting salary is thousands less than other Maryland counties, corrections officials said.
“Not filling these positions is having a serious impact on the overall operation as security officials are pulled from the security complement to fill vacant [civilian] positions,” Department of Corrections Director Alfred McMurray said.
As a result, the department already has busted its $3.7 million overtime budget by about $1.5 million, and officials estimate that by the end of the fiscal year in June they will have spent about $4.7 million more than allotted.
Last year, the department spent $6.6 million on overtime, about $2.9 million over budget.
To help ease the tension on staff, officials said they believe 100 inmates could be fitted with ankle bracelets and taken out of the jail in Upper Marlboro, saving about $3 million a year.
In January, the corrections officers union reported the 1,332-bed jail was housing a daily average of 1,482 inmates who are placed in common areas that can’t be secured. Union officials also said they frequently find weapons and lack riot equipment — helmets, batons and reliable radios.
On Thursday, corrections officials said the county’s homeland security department had supplied them with 15 radios and that earlier this month they received $15,385 to buyriot helmets, elbow and knee pads and other anti-riot gear.
