Silke Jasso
Cook County Jail is beginning to see a trend in the massive amount of officers that call off on days such as Mother’s Day as more than 200 officers called off on Sunday.
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Of the officers assigned to work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Cook County Sheriff’s office reported about 32 percent did not go to work, according to the Chicago Sun Times. Of the 200 officers to call in, 86 said they could not work because they were sick and the other 120 cited the Family Medical Leave Act.
“The extraordinary number of call offs puts additional pressure on the men and women of the Sheriff’s office who come to work as scheduled,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
While the visitation schedule was not affected by the massive number of call offs, the prison was placed on lockdown with only “essential movement” taking place throughout the day, according to the Sun Times.
Mother’s Day is not the only day the prison is seeing this trend as other days such as Father’s Day see high call off rates as well. Last year on Mother’s Day 420 officers called in sick and more than 520 did the same for Father’s Day a month later, according to the Sun Times.
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It seems that holidays aren’t the only days the officers call in however seeing as in May 2015 on the day of the Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao boxing match, almost 640 correctional officers called in.
Understaffing can cause the prison to have to pay over-time for those that do come in for their shifts, a cost that could be easily avoided if correctional officers did not call off.
