Governor Braun takes steps to improve retention of correctional officers and reduce recidivism

Governor Mike Braun Wednesday signed two executive orders centered around the Indiana Department of Correction.

The first executive order aims to help inmates secure gainful employment after they are released, to lower the rates of inmates going directly from incarceration to homelessness and reoffending.

The second executive order aims to improve working conditions for correctional officers with a comprehensive approach. Under this executive order, the Commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction will develop a comprehensive plan to improve employee retention, including collecting feedback about work environment and areas for improvement from employees, ensuring that employee training is providing new hires with the knowledge and skills they’ll need to perform, and using benchmarks and metrics tracked by facility to monitor employee turnover and identity areas for improvement.

Executive Order 25-46: Improving Opportunity and Reducing Recidivism by Improving the Path for Reentry within the Department of Correction

“Hoosiers are safer when inmates have a clear pathway toward gainful employment and stable housing after they are released. This executive order aims to lower the reoffending rate by helping formerly incarcerated individuals find work and avoid homelessness.”  — Governor Mike Braun

Keeping Hoosiers safe from crime is always priority one for this administration on any issue of corrections and criminal justice.

Because a high percentage of crime is committed by individuals that have already been incarcerated, an important strategy to lower crime is to reduce recidivism, or reoffending among inmates after they have served their time.

One key factor to reduce recidivism is employment. Former inmates who are unable to maintain employment in the three years after release reoffend at a rate of 52%. For those who do maintain employment, that recidivism rate plummets to 16%.

Another factor is housing: inmates who are released as homeless are 50% more likely to reoffend.

This executive order aims to reduce the recidivism rate by improving employment pathways for formerly incarcerated individuals and working with community partners to secure temporary housing for individuals upon release.


Executive Order 25-47: Promoting Public Safety and Prison Security by Directing the Indiana Department of Correction to Implement Strategies to Improve Employee Retention

“Our corrections officers have a really tough job, and do it exceptionally well. Today, I’m taking action to make sure we retain our great correctional employees with a comprehensive approach to employee retention: we’ll be improving training, listening to employees’ feedback on their work environment and leadership effectiveness, and using data to identify high turnover areas where we can improve.” — Governor Mike Braun

Indiana Department of Correction employees oversee more than 24,000 inmates in 21 facilities, and more than 7,000 parolees.

Due to the demanding and sometimes dangerous nature of their work, correctional officers experience high levels of on-the-job stress and burnout.

This executive order is designed to improve employee retention in this important field.

This executive order directs the Commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction to develop a comprehensive strategy for improving employee retention, specifically including:

• Establishing benchmarks and quarterly reports related to employee turnover, with a breakdown by facility, parole district, business unit, and shift assignment to identify areas for improvement.
• Evaluating onboarding and training practices, including establishing a four-week ‘pre-service’ academic program followed by on-the-job training.
• Developing a comprehensive retention plan using employee surveys and exit interviews to gather feedback on working conditions and refine retention strategies.

Governor Mike Braun was a national leader on improving working conditions for correctional officers in the U.S. Senate; his bipartisan Federal Prison Oversight Act to improve working conditions and keep federal corrections officers safe was signed into law last year.