Sep 22, 2023

Among Alabama's infamous prison problems has been the chronic understaffing of correctional officers. In March pay was raised for the officers. Guess what happened then.

We'll tell you in today's newsletter. We also have another high school football coach leaving this season for a military deployment. And police say there was an ambulance joy ride that, of course, came to an end that involved charges.

Ike Morgan

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Attention employers who can't get good help: We now see what happens to the supply of correctional officers when the wages for correctional officers go up.

AL.com's Mike Cason reports that The Alabama Department of Corrections has seen the trend of declining prison staff reverse since pay raises in March. In fact, Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said they've even seen former and retired employees come back to the job.

The prison-guard force has grown by a few dozen statewide since March. That's only a small dent in the more-than-700 job openings, but it looks a lot better than the net losses of 197 during fiscal year 2021 and 415 during fiscal year 2022.

Correctional officers who complete the 10-week academy start at $51,000 or more a year. That's $12,000-$15,000 more than it was before the pay hikes.

Another high school head football coach in Alabama is being deployed with the National Guard, reports AL.com's Ben Thomas.

We mentioned last month that Jackson-Olin's Jamaal Bess was heading overseas.

Now, Leroy head coach Jason Massey will leave in early October on his third deployment with the Guard. He can't say where he's going and doesn't know when he'll be back, but he said he hopes to be walking the sidelines for Leroy again when he does.

Massey has spent 30 years in the Guard and 11 at Leroy, which was 13-1 and the Class 1A state champion last season.

We don't want to put ourselves in the position of doling out advice to people who are on the run from the law, but we also want to make some real-world impact so here's one pro tip:

If you're on the lam, don't steal an ambulance.

AL.com's Warren Kulo reports that a 31-year-old man who was wanted in Florida for allegedly violating probation was arrested by Greenville, Alabama, police Wednesday afternoon after authorities said he hopped in an unlocked ambulance at Taco Bell and took off.

The man was released just this month after spending three years in Florida prison for an assault conviction. He had also served two other jail terms.

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That's where the Huntsville job market ranked nationally among cities of more than 100,000, according to an analysis of 2021 data by SmartAsset. Researchers said the criteria benefiting Huntsville the most was its unemployment rate three percentage points lower than the national average and a median-income growth of 30% from 2019-2021.

In 1981, Adam Lazzara, lead singer of Taking Back Sunday, born in Sheffield and moved to North Carolina at an early age.

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