By Martha Mauritson
Carlsbad Current-Argus
CARLSBAD — Michael Ingram has a lot in common with many other managers around Eddy County: He does his best to keep the various divisions of his operation up and running, and he’s always on the lookout for prospective employees with the right training to deal with his clientele.
As the interim warden at the Eddy County Detention Center, Ingram must have staff members who are not only good workers, but they must be certified to deal with the inmates and all the responsibilities that go with a jail setting.
One challenge has been finding enough officers to staff the women’s jail, which sits back-to-back with the main jail and faces Canyon Street
“We haven’t been able to get it fully staffed,” said Maria Maldonado-Merjil, Ingram’s chief deputy administrator.
Built about three years ago as part of an $8.5 million project that also built the juvenile detention center and did other renovations, the women’s facility has stood empty ever since. Fourteen detention officers and three sergeants — 17 in all — are needed to open the women’s jail, Maldonado-Merjil said.
Until they can be hired, 26 female inmates from Carlsbad are in Sierra Blanca, Texas, in the Hudspeth County jail.
The jail’s main unit, now housing male inmates, has 36 staff positions: 23 male officers and 13 female officers. Ingram said the main unit staff is about three people short.
The juvenile detention unit, across Main Street from the main jail, has 25 staff positions, 11 of which are now open.
Ingram wants to fill the juvenile vacancies and get the staff trained so that, in addition to Eddy County youths, “we can house juveniles from out of county, and make some revenue.”
Other detention center staff include three records clerks and three staffers who handle training, classification and road crew. The transport division is made up of a sergeant who oversees the unit, four full-time and four part-time transport officers.
“Every Monday they have 30 to 40 or more inmates to transport to court appearances,” Ingram said.
And finally, there is the alternate sentencing unit — inmates who are on house arrest for misdemeanors. If they violate the house arrest, they must return to the jail.
By the end of this month — Aug. 31 — Ingram hopes a new scheduling plan will keep more employees on the job.
“We are about to go to 12-hour shifts,” he said. A detention officer will work two days on 12-hour shifts, take two days off, then two more 12-hour shifts. The result of this:
“Every officer will have every other Friday, Saturday and Sunday off,” Ingram said.
He says employees are happy about the upcoming plan.
“It’s a good thing,” he said.
In another staffing move, the jail is looking for eight booking clerks to take the places of detention officers who are now doing that job.
“That puts a lot of officers back on the floor,” Ingram said.
The new clerks will have no inmate contact, and their offices will be behind cinder block walls and bullet-proof glass.