By Mark Morey
Yakima Herald-Republic
YAKIMA, Wash. — It shouldn’t be this hard to fill one job.
Certainly, someone out there wants to work at the Yakima city jail, where the pay is better than many entry-level positions.
But it’s not that simple.
For at least a year, the Yakima Police Department has advertised three times to fill a single vacancy for a corrections officer.
Of 14 applicants that made it past initial screening over the last year, 10 passed oral interviews. Of those, one took another job and three didn’t pass various background checks. The remaining six are undergoing review.
In that time, they might drop out or additional testing might make them ineligible for the job.
“It happens. It happens a little too frequently, unfortunately, for us,” said Lt. Mike Pollard, who oversees the city jail. Even after being hired, the finalist will have to pass the state corrections academy.
One vacancy might not seem like a lot, but especially for a small jail, it pushes up overtime costs and stresses the staff of 10 officers and three sergeants.
And larger facilities, such as the Yakima County jail, face the same challenge in recruiting and retaining enough officers to fill their shifts on a consistent basis.
Jail commanders see a variety of possible reasons for the limited number of applicants.
Many use a jail job as a stepping stone to police work — many potential employees are applying directly to police departments, some young people may not see law enforcement as an attractive career, either because of the responsibilities or better pay in other arenas, and those who do apply get weeded out at a relatively high rate for everything from drug use to poor physical fitness.
Ed Campbell, director of the Yakima County Department of Corrections, said the number of applicants has fluctuated over the 28 years since he joined the department as a corrections officer, moved to the sheriff’s office as a deputy and administrator, and then returned to DOC.
“I’ve seen ebbs and tides in this career,” he said.
After a series of layoffs starting in 2011, the county jail has been in a hiring phase for the last 18 months to keep its 120 positions filled.
Campbell estimates that perhaps five to eight candidates — sometimes fewer — out of 25 to 30 will ultimately be considered for hiring. That’s why the county is almost constantly recruiting candidates.
Jurisdictions are taking a variety of approaches to finding applicants.
Yakima is introducing the possibility at school career fairs, hoping to let youngsters and soon-to-be graduates know they need to stay out of trouble in order to be considered. Yakima County is recruiting through criminal justice programs at local colleges and advertising outside of Yakima to reach a broader pool of people.
Corrections officials suggest that high school students considering a law enforcement career maintain their fitness, stay out of trouble and focus on criminal justice classes in college.
Capt. Gary Jones, who coordinates many of the background investigations for YPD applicants, said drug and alcohol use and honesty issues — theft or lying, for example — can be among the many issues that trip up candidates.
The other hurdle is the physical agility test. “It doesn’t take a lot of research to figure out America is getting lazier, fatter and slower,” he said.
For Yakima, pay plays a part in the recruiting problems, too. An entry-level corrections officer next year will start with a base rate just under $20 per hour and top out under $24. At Yakima County, pay starts at about $20 and tops out at about $30, Campbell said.
Pollard says he hopes to see the city improve salaries for corrections officers, but there are few other carrots to offer applicants.
On the other hand, veteran officers say this isn’t one of those jobs you necessarily do for the money. Not everybody wants to risk being assaulted or spit on by an inmate.
National studies suggest corrections officers face a variety of hardships, including stress disorders and a higher-than-average divorce rate, plus a feeling that they’re not appreciated by the public or their agencies.
“It takes a certain person to be able to do this job,” said Sgt. Dwight Charlton, who’s worked at the city jail for 18 years.
On the positive side, corrections officers may spend a year or more in close proximity to prisoners. That gives them a chance to build a rapport with the inmates and talk to them about their options on the outside: Are they going to look for work? What are they doing to stay out of trouble?
Most of Yakima’s corrections officers and sergeants have at least five years on the job; the longest-serving has worked for the city for 20 years.
In this small jail with room for 79 inmates, officers are responsible for all functions: booking, transporting and releasing prisoners, managing the library, distributing commissary items.
“The guys that work here, we do everything. You are going to become a well-rounded officer, but there is no room for moving up,” Charlton said.
Corrections Officer Jason Masters has worked at the city jail for 10 years. He spent three years at the county jail, then switched to the city because the pay was better at the time.
Masters calls law enforcement an honorable, though often thankless, profession.
“You take pride in knowing that you fit the requirements of the job. It’s not easy getting in to law enforcement — it takes some effort,” he said.