West Virginia’s jails system is still in a state of emergency, still leaning on National Guard members for support and still not up to a desired level for staffing, but officials describe an improving situation.
“I am happy to report today, for the first time since covid, our vacancies were under a thousand. We were almost at 1,100 at one time. We’re now at 990,” said Corrections Commissioner William Marshall at legislative interim meetings.
Gov. Jim Justice declared a State of Emergency more than a year ago over the staffing in West Virginia’s jails system, enabling the National Guard to perform support roles. Since then, state officials have been discussing how best to alleviate the staffing shortages.
Marshall said recent pay incentives seem to be starting to work, although he said the sample size is still too small to judge. And he described other ways, like job fairs, that the state is trying to make corrections jobs attractive to potential employees.
He said 330 to 340 National Guard members continue to staff West Virginia corrections facilities.
“We are still utilizing the National Guard,” Marshall said in response to a lawmaker question. “We’re working toward trying to eliminate as many of those as we can going forward as long as we continue to hire, continue to bring new recruits in. The National Guard are working non-inmate contact posts.”
The declared emergency in West Virginia’s corrections systems continues even though in August lawmakers passed and the governor signed bills meant to bolster West the state’s jails and prisons.
One of the bills, SB 1005,puts $21.1 million toward increase starting pay and change pay scales for correctional officers. Two more, SB 1003 and SB 1004, provide nearly $6 million for one-time bonuses for correctional support staff, divided into two payments beginning this month.
“We needed to move forward with absolutely putting us in at least a competitive situation to where we could hire people,” Justice said at a news briefing last week. “Now we’ve got a lot of people jumping up on a soapbox saying, ‘We’ve got to do this, we’ve got to do this, we’ve got to do this.'”
Justice continued, “We have got to address this. We have got to absolutely take care of the folks who are in our jails. It is our obligation to do that, and we’ve got to do so.”
Overcrowding at some jails continues. North Central Regional Jail, with a population of more than 800, is about 300 over capacity.
“It’s just such a hotbed of an area right now when it comes to drug crimes and crimes in general feeding into North Central,” Marshall said.
The condition of the jails has also been a major issue.
On Monday, Marshall said millions of dollars allocated toward deferred maintenance is starting to kick in.
“We also have received nearly $60 million in deferred maintenance money that we’ve been working working with immediately,” he said. “We’ve submitted eight projects, division wide projects that include prisons, jails and juvenile centers to begin work immediately on.”
A federal class action lawsuit filed on behalf of inmates has taken aim at overcrowding, understaffing and deferred maintenance.
“Overcrowding, understaffing, and deferred maintenance all have an impact on safety,” the lawsuit states, citing the State of Emergency in corrections.
“The correctional officer shortage in the regional jails affects the security of the jails as the facilities depend on staff and security staff to operate them safely,” the lawsuit contends. “Shortage of staff or overworked staff would have an impact on the safety of the facility.”
Yet another lawsuit filed in September, 2022, is a class action against against Southern Regional Jail, the West Virginia Division of Corrections and every county commission that pays Southern Regional to house inmates.
Allegations in the suit include inmates sleeping on mats soaked in toilet water, some being forced to sleep on concrete floors, poor air quality because of black mold. and denial of nutritious food, running water or a toilet. The most recent battle in federal court has been over whether state officials improperly disposed of records that could have been evidence in the case.
State figures involved in the case include retired Homeland Security Secretary Jeff Sandy and Betsy Jividen, former commissioner of the Division of Corrections.
Justice and his administration’s chief of staff, Brian Abraham, have received notices to be deposed in the case next week, Oct. 24. However, the plaintiffs attorneys filed a motion today, asking the judge to compel them to respond to questioning.
“Both deponents have been identified by the Defendants in this case as having knowledge relevant to the issues alleged by the Plaintiffs. Specifically, Defendants such as Jeff Sandy, testified that for years his department requested of the Governor’s office funding to address pervasive overcrowding, pervasive understaffing, and over two hundred million dollars in deferred maintenance,” the plaintiffs lawyers wrote.