By Briah Lumpkins
The Charlotte Observer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — At the January meeting for the Southern Region of the Correctional Leaders Association, Gov. Josh Stein emphasized the importance of addressing shortages of correctional officers across the state.
Stein addressed dozens of state corrections leaders from across the South and their staff in Charlotte on Tuesday to brainstorm ideas and discuss the dangers of officer shortages in the state’s prisons. Today, more than a third of North Carolina’s correctional officer positions are unfilled and some facilities have vacancies that exceed 50%, Stein said.
The governor also discussed the impact that low pay has on retention. The starting salary for state correctional officers in North Carolina is $37,000 — the second-lowest starting salary of any state in the country.
These vacancies create dangerous situations that can result in harm like in the case of Franciso Flattes earlier this year, Stein said. Flattes, a detention officer in Cherokee County , was shot and killed by a federal inmate in Western North Carolina last June.
“Nobody wants to face violence or burnout in their work day, and correctional officers are no different. Some of these challenges are innate to the role, but some of them we must resolve,” Stein said, speaking at the Doubletree Suites by Hilton Hotel Charlotte.
In September, Stein’s office issued an immediate budget request to the North Carolina legislature for many issues, including supporting public safety agencies. In that request, the governor asked to give the state’s correctional officers and youth counselors a 6.5% raise, which would bump their starting salaries to more than $40,000.
But as the only state in the country without a passed budget, these requests have yet to be granted.
“I think there’s genuine concern and understanding among legislators about the importance of this issue. It’s just a matter of priorities,” Stein said. “They need to prioritize investing in people, investing in public safety, investing in education, investing in health care. Not being so focused on giving the next tax cut to out-of-state corporate shareholders. ”
History of staffing shortages
A 2017 investigation by The Charlotte Observer found that staff shortages leave corrections officers outnumbered and inmates with opportunities to obtain weapons, cellphones and other dangerous contraband.
That same year, five North Carolina Department of Adult correction employees were killed by inmates in two separate incidents. One officer was killed by an inmate at Bertie Correctional Institution, four others were killed allegedly by inmates wielding scissors and hammers attempting to escape Pasquotank Correctional Institution in eastern North Carolina.
Insufficient staffing also impacts the amount of inmates able to be housed in state prisons. In 2024, 5,338 prison beds across 25 facilities were temporarily closed, according to reporting from NC Health News.
Staffing shortages have also impacted juvenile detention facilities across North Carolina and Mecklenburg County.
Mecklenburg’s juvenile detention facility — known as Jail North — closed in 2022 after Sheriff Garry McFadden cited staffing shortages at the main adult jails. This resulted in children sent to facilities across the state — often far from family and legal representation, a recent report for NC Health News revealed.
Reopening the facility to accommodate the increased number of young people needing detention would require 96 detention officers and additional administrative staff, McFadden told The Charlotte Observer .
Stein stressed the importance of ensuring that vacancies in juvenile facilities are filled.
“When you have vacancies like we have here in North Carolina right now with a third of adult correction officers vacant — and 40 or 50% of the juvenile positions are vacant. When you don’t have enough officers, it means everybody else has to work more,” Stein said. “...It also means there are not enough officers within the facility to ensure that all programs can happen, so there may be some positive program that enables somebody to get some education or training in a skill that the prison or facility has to shut down because they don’t have enough staff.
“It’s not in the long term interest of anyone.”
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