By Corrections1 Staff
BENNETTSVILLE, SC — South Carolina corrections officers are feeling the impact of the partial government shutdown.
The staff has been working several hours a day with no pay with some working double shifts because of a staff shortage, local news station WBTW reports.
“Some people will just go home and say, ‘hey I’m not coming to work,’ but no we take a sacrifice,” Clellan Tyson, senior officer specialist at Federal Correctional Institution in Bennettsville said. “When we took this oath, we said we were going to do our job to the fullest and that’s what we’re doing.”
Expenses are becoming hard to manage for some officers. Many officers travel about two and half hours to come to the facility, which will become a costly without a paycheck.
The shutdown is also affecting inmates.
“I mean some inmates program[s] could be canceled,” Tyson said. “The bureau prison now has something called re-entry and we’re trying to make sure that the inmates are rehabilitated once they get out, so they can learn more job skills.”
If the government reopens by this week, the next paycheck will hopefully come in by January 25.