Earlier this week, Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon detailed significant prison staffing shortages in a hearing held by the Florida Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice. Since January 2021, Florida’s prison population has increased by about 8,000 people – but staff levels have remained flat. In response to the growing prison population, the Florida Department of Corrections had to open up 53 housing units, which are staffed through an unsustainable combination of overtime for existing correctional officers and supplemental National Guard troops. In the next two years, an additional 3,000 people are expected to enter Florida’s prisons – an influx that will require 18 more housing units and 461 more staff positions, further exacerbating the staffing shortage. 

For corrections officers, staff shortages can lead to long shifts, mandatory excessive overtime, dangerous working conditions, and extended time away from family, which contributes to increased stress, burnout, and other adverse mental and physical health impacts. For incarcerated individuals, prison staffing shortages lead to lockdowns, housing units being consolidated, limited access to educational and rehabilitation services and programming, and delayed medical care. Understaffing also threatens the safety of the institution, its employees, and those incarcerated, while severely limiting the availability of treatment and rehabilitation programs that prepare incarcerated people to successfully return to their homes and communities.

The staffing shortages in Florida prisons underscore a larger national understaffing crisis that continues to grow. Virginia, Texas, Alabama, and Georgia are just a few of the other states with documented critical prison staffing shortages. The Safer Prisons, Safer Communities campaign, launched by One Voice United and FAMM, two of the leading organizations advocating for corrections officers and incarcerated people and their families, aims to address this crisis by raising awareness of understaffing, overcrowding, and deteriorating conditions in U.S. prisons.

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About Safer Prisons. Safer Communities

The Safer Prisons, Safer Communities campaign began in early 2024. The two founding organizations are One Voice United, which represents the voices of correctional employees, and FAMM, which represents incarcerated people and their families.

Driven by the dire conditions inside our nation's prisons, the campaign brings together seemingly unlikely allies to advocate for reforms that will improve the lives of corrections officers and incarcerated people alike, improve rehabilitation and reintegration opportunities, and enhance community safety.