Many of the correctional officers at the Allegheny County Jail are working 80 hours in five days. Over 60% of first-year correctional officer recruits have terminated employment primarily because of being forced to work these unimaginable shifts. Correctional officers’ life expectancy is 61 years of age.

Millions are being proposed by the Allegheny County executive for other projects such as housing and the public defender’s office but nothing for the staffing crisis at the jail. Why?

Do county public defenders work 80 hours in five days in a job in which they could be hurt? Their life expectancy is 77.

To confront the staffing crisis, officers are asking for $1 million for double overtime pay in situations beyond where an officer has worked his or her 40-hour shift and two overtime shifts.

If one really digests the data-driven premise that officers would be dying sooner by days, weeks and months if they worked beyond seven shifts in a week, then one can understand why jail officers need to be paid twice their normal rate. They are taking risks regarding the longevity of their lives.

The county executive and county council can become redeemers in providing this incentive and bring life and future to jail officers and their families, or they can continue to be undertakers engaging in denial and avoidance and ushering officers to their early deaths and an uncertain future for their families.

John Kenstowicz

Morningside

The writer works as an advocate to improve living and working conditions at the Allegheny County Jail.

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