On a “good day,” he told lawmakers, he had maybe six or seven officers to supervise roughly 1,200 people. In Texas, Lance Lowry quit after 20 years as a corrections officer to become a long-haul trucker because he couldn’t bear the job any longer. “There are dozens of reasons to leave and very few to stay,” said Brian Dawe, national director of One Voice United, a nonprofit supporting corrections officers. “We don’t always get showers.”A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not respond to Haynes’ claims but acknowledged that staffing is a challenge in Texas’ prisons. “Before COVID-19, staffing was frequently impacted by economic surges and competing employment opportunities,” said spokesman Robert Hurst in an email.
