Severe Staffing Shortage May Have Led To Tennessee Inmate’s Murder
Image Credit: tn.gov & Canva
The Tennessee Conservative [By Rebecca Scott] –
A temporary unsealing of court documents has revealed a severe lack of staffing at a Hartsville, Tennessee prison.
According to the Tennessee government website, “Trousdale Turner Correctional Center (TTCC) is a medium security facility managed by CoreCivic, a private corrections management firm.”
The Tennessee Department of Corrections has fined CoreCivic millions of dollars after it was discovered that from 2020 through 2022 thousands of hours of security posts were left unfilled.
In January 2022 alone, 177 vacant positions in the prison accounted for over 10,000 hours left unfilled by corrections officers. Since contractual staffing requirements were unmet, TDOC fined CoreCivic $735,000 in that single month.
CoreCivic has defended itself in saying that the years of 2020 through 2022 were the height of the COVID pandemic and made staffing difficult for most businesses during that time.
The death of inmate Marktavious Twilley occurred during the period of severe understaffing in March 2022. Twilley was stabbed to death by four other inmates.
In January of 2023, Twilley’s family filed a lawsuit against TDOC.
A former corrections officer at Trousdale Turner, Monica Marsh, submitted a statement for the case in which she wrote, “Twilley’s murder was 100% preventable. Trousdale Turner Correctional Facility was never fully staffed.”
She went on to describe how the critical lack of correctional officers at the facility made it possible for the four inmates to move about the prison and target Twilley. Marsh stated that only 5 or 6 officers were on duty at the time of Twilley’s death.
According to prison records, 2,539 inmates were incarcerated at Trousdale Turner during the month of Twilley’s death.
According to CoreCivic, they are having more success in hiring but still have staffing challenges that they are working to resolve.
Rebecca Scott is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative.
You can reach Rebecca at Rebecca@tennesseeconservativenews.com
