(Des Moines, IA) -- Iowa prisons are dangerously understaffed and the new, Three Strikes law will make it worse.

Corrections staff told Democratic nominee for Governor Rob Sand the law requiring mandatory sentences for repeat felons will force the state to build new prisons.

Sand held a round table discussion with corrections employees in Des Moines on Tuesday.

"If you're building more and your can't staff the ones that you have, how's that going to work out? So, clearly what we're doing right now is not working. And nobody knows that better than the people who have been injured on the job or the families of those who have been injured on the job or killed on the job," Sand said.

The new law is expected to bring another 250 inmates into Iowa's prison system.

Todd Copley, President of AFSCME Council 61, represents Iowa corrections staff. He says the state is spending millions to cover staff shortages at state prisons.

"The staffing issues alone have created such excess overtime throughout the system. Up to this point, they've spent $5.5 million dollars just on overtime and anticipate spending another $3 million, so a total of $8 million dollars this year," Copley said

Prison workers blame low pay and few bargaining rights for the staff shortages.

Neil Lemaster is a registered nurse at the Iowa State Peniteniary, where he says the facility is 61 officers short and that's creating a safety hazard. Lemaster says he's worked in corrections for nearly 30 years but is several years away from retirement.

"I feel like I might be murdered at work, for retirement. We take risks we shouldn't have to take," Lemaster told Sand.

Two corrections officers were killed at the Anamosa Prison in 2021 by inmates trying to escape. The families of the officers claim the prison was over capacity and understaffed for months before the murders.

A 2017 state law revised what's known as "Chapter 20," which removed the collective bargaining rights for corrections workers on all items except for base pay. And they are no longer classified as public safety workers.

Sand says he supports classifying corrections officers as public safety workers and restoring their bargaining rights.

"I think if you ask the average Iowan, ‘Hey, somebody who’s working in prison, are they public safety workers?’ They’d say... ‘What? Of course they are. What are you talking about?’ And so I don’t think that request is anything outside of common sense," Sand said.

Sand faces Republican Zach Lahn in the November election. Lahn picked up the endorsements of 40 sheriffs from around the state on Tuesday.

Sand has received support from more than 60 public safety officials in Iowa, including current and former Sheriffs, prosecutors and firefighters.