The Dallas County jail, also known as Lew Sterrett, houses roughly 7,100 inmates and 900 staff members. Recently a staffing shortage has been on the rise and has become an issue among the staff members and the inmates residing there. People who were once working there end up retiring or just quitting, and nobody is replacing them. This forces the jailers to work mandatory 16-hour shifts up to five days in a row. This 16-hour workday is being "mandated" for the jailers because there are not enough people working inside the jail. These staffing issues create potentially dangerous scenarios that involve the jailers and the detainees. I asked my good friend, Michael Schram, what he thinks of the current events occurring inside the jail. "I'm not surprised by that at all. Everywhere is short-staffed right now. Maybe they need to offer larger sign-on bonuses to incentify people to work there." He also believes that "People don't want to work manual labor jobs anymore because of covid, people want to work remotely." Michael and I share similar beliefs regarding incentifying sign-on bonuses for people who work at jails and prisons. The only way out of this situation is giving the people what they want so they will actually stay and work.
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