Monday, June 25, 2012

TDCJ turnover rate among guards lower than reported

Employment data Grits published over the weekend from TDCJ misinterpreted and overstated job turnover trends among prison guards, TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark emailed to say, though he graciously added that  it was "our fault for not putting an appropriate caveat on the turnover report." See his explanation below the jump:
The agency turnover report uses the SAO's methodology for calculating turnover by job title:  the number of separations during the year divided by the average number of filled positions during the year. The methodology works fine for most job titles, but produces a misleading
result for positions in which individuals only serve for a few months.

For example, the FY 2011 report shows a turnover rate of 59.36 percent for the CO I position (405 separations/682.3 average filled positions).  That implies six out of ten newly hired correctional officers do not advance to the CO II position.

But it doesn't account for the fact that a person is only a CO I for two months.  More than 4,000 men and women held the CO I position during FY 2011.  Of the 4,000, 405 separated employment. So in reality one out of ten newly hired correctional officers fails to advance to the CO II position.

The turnover rate for CO II (56.54 percent) is also misleading, although less overstated.  Because someone is a CO II for six months,  there was somewhat less than 4,000 men and women in the CO II position during FY 2011, of which 1,062 separated.

In fact, about one third of newly hired correctional officers fail to advance to CO III.  About 40 percent of newly hired correctional officers leave in the first year.  The blog is right in that the highest CO turnover rate occurs in the first year of employment, but 80 percent is not correct.
Grits apologizes for the misinterpretation and has corrected the erroneous post. See more related to understaffing issues at TDCJ from The Back Gate.

7 comments:

  1. The central point, which is that the turnover is astronomical, and due in large part to crummy working conditions and low pay, mismanagement, etc. etc. is still valid.

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  2. Don is right. Jason is trying to polish a turd. We simply cannot sustain this monstrous prison system as is.

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  3. Gosh what will the suits out of Huntsville say next? What officer shortage? We will just change the staffing ratio!
    See here's the deal for years I sat in turnout and was told this, "If you don't how we do things then go to WalMart!"
    When an employer has trouble finding workers and retaining them there is something wrong! The sad thing about TDCJ is the morons they promote. Now I have to admit I have seen some great rank. However I have also seen the great rank go else where to work same for co's!
    I really donot think TDCJ will ever get it!

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  4. Maybe its time to downsize.

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  5. anon 12:14:
    AMEN!!

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  6. Well, well, well, it seems Jason is off to a marvelous start. He failed to provide an explanation to the data when he released it, and then tries to clean it up AFTER a story is published that the admin doesn't think is favorable. They are notorious for massaging the numbers and stats to meet whatever figure they want - as has been stated, they will simply change the ratios to make the vacancies look less threatening. Jason isn't only polishing a turd, he is a turd.

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  7. Only 40% of new correctional officers leave in the first year. Whew, what a relief! Now that that's cleared up why bother looking into the reasons for the turnover rate. Besides it's all the fault of the darn oil and gas companies anyway. The sooner Obama's EPA finds a way to put an end to Fracking, the problem will be solved.

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