Prison understaffing: A crisis seen by few, felt by prisoners and prison employees

We have lived on opposite sides of prison bars. One of us spent 22 years incarcerated for a nonviolent drug offense. The other dedicated over 20 years of career service in maximum and medium security prisons.

We both landed in prison, in a sense, trying to escape broken homes and poverty.

Although our situations are quite different, corrections staff and incarcerated people have more in common than people think. We eat the same prison meals. We sweat in the same un-air-conditioned blocks.