We have been trying to get more Sergeant Positions at our Correctional Facility for a while now. We currently have 3 Sergeants and 210 Correctional Officers. Management now is asking us to write a proposal for more Sergeant spots that will benefit the operation at the facility. We are a medium/max facility which holds about 1150 inmates. Our facility is treatment oriented. We have 7 units, which are run by Uint managers and Assist Unit Mangers. We have 2 Shift Captains on 1st and 2nd shift and 1 Shift Captain on 3rd shift.

With this general layout of are facility on how it is ran, does anyone have any suggestions on what we can put in our proposal for more Sergeant Positions.

Why is management asking labor (I’m assuming that you are labor) to write a proposal for more supervisors? As a Chief, something sounds wrong with that to me, but I don’t know how it came about so I will refrain from commenting unless your management doesn’t really want more supervisors and is having you do this as an exercise in futility.

The request that you ask is not possible to intelligently answer because there are SO many more questions that need to be asked. How many CO's per shift, what are these new positions going to be responsible for, WHO wants these Sgt. positions, labor or management and the questions go on and on and on, is management in favor of having more supervisors and how many do they want? How much money is needed, obviously this isn’t something that can be done now unless there is money in the budget to do this.

Are there any requirements, suggestions and/or rules, maybe by some Standards and Accreditation group like the ACA in relation to staffing and supervision? Does your state have requirements, what do other facilities that are your size do for staffing?

I would be more than happy to give you some ideas, but there are many questions that must be answered before you can start your process.

Best of luck…

I would look at any book, article or Professional References (other agencies similar to yours) in your area dealing with Span of Control. The words Liability, Negligent Appointment and Negligent Assignment alone should point them in the right direction. With that many Sergeants vs. employees and inmates, some of you have to be doing more than your job description.........I'm sure there's some case-law out there too if you researched long enough.... Goodluck