Quick Take:

• The Issue: Craggy Correctional Center in Asheville is set to close in late summer 2026, displacing 77 employees and transferring 250 incarcerated men to other state prisons.
• Why It’s Happening: Craggy correctional officers start at $38,859 — more than $22,000 less than the Buncombe County Detention Center pays for the same work — and the facility has hired only three officers in two years.
• What You Can Do: Contact your legislators and tell them Craggy is what happens when state pay falls behind.

Last Friday, the Department of Adult Correction announced it is winding down Craggy Correctional Center in Asheville, with the facility set to close in late summer.

The 250 men incarcerated there will be transferred to other prisons in the coming months. The 77 employees will be offered jobs at other NCDAC facilities in western North Carolina.

The official reason is the cost of living in Buncombe County. The real reason is pay.

Craggy correctional officers start at $38,859. A few miles down the road, the Buncombe County Detention Center starts its officers at $60,999 — more than $22,000 higher for the same work. Over the past two years, while the facility has operated at less than half its capacity, Craggy has hired a grand total of three correctional officers. The National Institute of Corrections recommends that the facility employ 123. It has about 20.

Craggy isn’t an anomaly. North Carolina’s starting pay for correctional officers remains among the lowest in the nation. Over the last two decades, the state has closed 15 of its 70 prisons. More than 5,000 beds sit empty in the facilities that remain — not because we don’t need them, but because there aren’t enough officers to staff them.

DAC Chief Operating Officer Tammera Hill joined The SEANC View Podcast this week to discuss what closing Craggy actually means. We also talk through the state budget pay recommendations and the inevitable pay discrepancies they will create.

SEANC’s Ardis Watkins also appeared on this week’s WUNC Politics podcast with Colin Campbell to discuss these issues and the state budget.

When the state refuses to pay livable wages, the state stops being able to do the work. Prisons close. Beds sit empty. Highway patrol cars sit in driveways. Hospitals run short. Classrooms go without. DMV lines grow.