The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The annual cost to pay for those new positions is about $11 million, Altman said.
Pinal County plans to cover that cost from rent it hopes to collect for housing in its jail from up to 625 detainees awaiting deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a bureau of the Department of Homeland Security.
So far, the Pinal County Board of Supervisors has approved funding for 83 new positions at the jail, including the 66 detention officers and 12 detention aides. They will join about 4,000 other people who work at county, state, federal and private detention facilities and prisons in Florence, said Jess Knudson, a spokesman for the town. Roughly 25 percent of those workers live in Florence, according to Knudson. "It's a lot of jobs," Knudson said. "Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of them that reside in Florence. We realize we don't have a lot of housing developments as of yet." The town's population is estimated to be 21,000, but it's only 6,000-plus if you subtract the inmate population of about 15,000 housed at eight facilities within the town limits, Knudson said. Florence's population is projected to swell up to 200,000 over the next 10 to 15 years, Knudson said. Meanwhile, the jail and prison cells keep coming. The Arizona Department of Corrections contracted earlier this year with the Correctional Services Corp. to build in Florence a 1,000-bed private prison facility for sex offenders. The county is adding a 100-bed juvenile detention center, and the Sheriff's Office is expanding its jail by 1,034 beds. By March, Altman hopes to gain approval to begin hiring for 87 positions, most of which will be detention officers. Pinal County's starting annual pay for a detention officer with five years experience is $33,945. It's $33,113 for those with one to five years of experience, and $32,302 for one year or less. Pay is the same during and after training. Maximum pay is $44,657.60.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/1119gr-moreguardsnewZ12.
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