South Carolina / Department of Corrections / Correctional Officer

Job-title file

Correctional Officer

Supervise and maintain custody of incarcerated individuals, enforce facility rules, and keep the facility secure.

490 employees hold this title in Department of Corrections. Median total compensation for the role is $54,682, below the department median of $63,461.

Employees: 490
Total payroll: $27.2M
Role median: $54,682
Agency median: $63,461
Comparison: Below

What the records show

Role pay distribution

Pay distribution for this role

$50,182$67,711+

Hover a bar for its range; click to filter the list below.

How total compensation varies among the 490 people in this role. Even for one job title, pay differs with seniority, step, overtime, and tenure. Each bar is a pay range; the far-right bar collects the highest earners.

Compared with the local labor market

Correctional Officer pay vs. South Carolina

Across all employers in South Carolina, the median wage for Correctional Officers and Jailers — about 4,870 people — is $47,890. Department of Corrections pays a median base salary of $54,682 for this role, 14% above that figure — about the 66th percentile of local pay for the occupation.

Where Department of Corrections sits in the local pay range

10th

25th

Median

75th

90th

$40,090

$43,790

$47,890

$58,530

$71,390

Department of Corrections median · $54,682

The bar is the range of annual wages for Correctional Officers and Jailers across every employer in South Carolina, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Department of Corrections’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.

And across the country

Nationwide, the median wage for Correctional Officers and Jailers — about 380,500 people — is $58,940. Department of Corrections’s median base salary is 7% below that national figure, about the 40th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.

10th

25th

Median

75th

90th

$42,760

$48,640

$58,940

$75,850

$93,220

Department of Corrections median · $54,682

Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the South Carolina range relative to the national one.

Computed over the 489 of 490 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.

Median total compensation for this role at Department of Corrections is $54,682, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.

Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.

Compare jurisdictions

Correctional Officer beyond South Carolina

This role is reported in 16 jurisdictions. In South Carolina, the median of $54,682 ranks #9 of 16. See Correctional Officer across all of South Carolina →

Highest-paying jurisdictions for this role

California

$115,156 · 24,878

Miami-Dade County

$91,300 · 1,602

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

$86,041 · 562

$79,600 · 5,693

$73,954 · 633

$64,050 · 2,032

$59,438 · 21,615

$58,638 · 749

Median total compensation for comparable Correctional Officerroles in other jurisdictions. Titles are matched by normalized name across sources, not identical job classification, and pay is not cost-of-living adjusted. Each bar links to that jurisdiction’s page for the role.

Record list