Most of the registered nurses and medical unit supervisors who responded were white and female and reported an average income of nearly $29,000. More than 60 percent reported difficulty in recruiting registered nurses, with 33 percent reporting that it took more than 60 days to recruit a nurse for a position in a county jail. Vacancy rates for nurses working in correctional settings were 21 percent compared to 10.6 percent for hospitals and 2.2 percent for ambulatory care facilities. The participants believed that salary compression was the greatest factor influencing the supply of nurses followed by increased career options for women, the decline in nursing school enrollments, the poor image of nurses, and the decrease in the number of high school graduates. Organizational factors such as inmate overcrowding and complaints, threats of lawsuits, constraints imposed by security considerations, and lack of participation by nurses in policy decisions also reduced job satisfaction. Tables and 25 references