Full-time recruiter hired to help fill northwest Missouri prison jobs

CAMERON, Mo. -- Within four months of its opening in 1997, the maximum-security Crossroads Correctional Center reached full capacity with 1,450 inmates. Keeping the prison staffed with a full quota of correctional officers has been another matter.

Crossroads is one of two state prisons in Cameron and five in northwest Missouri. With an improving economy over the past decade, hiring entry-level prison staff has become more difficult, Larry Crawford, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, said Friday.

The state has now hired a full-time recruiter to help keep the northwest Missouri prisons staffed with sufficient personnel, Crawford said.

"We take seriously the recruiting and retention of good, qualified employees," Crawford said. "It is a huge thing."

Corrections Department spokesman Brian Hauswirth said the recruiter, Angelika Sakaguchi, has an annual salary of $33,800 to recruit employees for the region's prisons and to fill other vacancies for the department in northwest Missouri.

In Cameron alone, Crawford said, Crossroads currently needs to fill 35 positions and the medium-security Western Missouri Correctional Center is trying to fill 48 jobs.

Could be used elsewhere

The department has had part-time recruiters before in northwest Missouri. If the full-time recruiter proves successful, the agency may use the same strategy elsewhere in the state, Crawford said.

Crawford was joined by Crossroads superintendent Mike Kemna at an observance of the prison's 10th anniversary Friday.

Kemna noted two major changes at the prison since it opened: installation of a courtroom inside the prison, and construction of a security tower in the yard.

The courtroom was created after a judge realized that the DeKalb County courthouse wasn't equipped to conduct large numbers of hearings for maximum-security inmates, Kemna said.

Crossroads has had only one escape since it opened, when an inmate got out with the help of an infatuated staff member. Both were caught six weeks later.