DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Hon. JOSEPH D. TYDINGS, DEAR SENATOR TYDINGS: Your letter of February 4, 1969, requested a report detailing the degree of implementation of those recommendations contained in the Report of the President's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia. The attachments summarize the progress achieved in implementing the recommendations of the Crime Commission. Although every effort has been made to implement the recommendations; funding, lack of personnel, overcrowding, and inadequate facilities have hindered implementation of several of the recommendations. If we can be of further assistance to you in this matter, please do not hesitate to advise us. Sincerely. KENNETH L. HARDY, Director. DECEMBER-JANUARY PROGRESS REPORT ON DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CRIME COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS 6.18 A new detention facility should be constructed to replace the present jail. To comply with this recommendation, the Department of Corrections requested inoneys for detention facility planning in three successive budget requests: Fiscal year 1967 supplemental, fiscal year 1968, and fiscal year 1969. All three requests were disapproved by Congress. Following expressions of opinion by the Corporation Counsel and the U.S. District Attorney to the effect that unsentenced prisoners can be transferred from the District of Columbia jail to institutions on the Lorton Reservation, some shifts of such prisoners have been made, primarily to the penitentiary and to the correctional complex. These transfers, which numbered approximately 250 in midNovember, eased presssures on the District of Columbia jail for a time, but in recent weeks overcrowding has occurred again. Two studies which were recently completed have a significant bearing on the issue of a new detention center. The Corrections Advisory Committee under the direction of Mr. William K. Norwood made an investigation and a report was submitted on December 11. The Bureau of Prisons provided a second group to study some of the operating problems of the Department and one team from the group concentrated on the District of Columbia jail. Both groups have recommended the construction of a new facility. The chief of the crime report team has been asked to seek a meeting of representatives of the three most immediately concerned agencies-the courts, the police, and corrections to consider the implications of the reports for the general problem of detention of unsentenced prisoners in the District. 6.19 Approximately 100 correctional officers should be added to the Department of Corrections in order to remedy deficiencies in institutional security and prisoner supervision. In its initial budget request in fiscal 1969, the Department requested 80 additional correctional officers. The District of Columbia Budget Office reduced this number to 35. All 35 positions were approved by Congress. The Department has begun to act on the newly authorized plan to speed recruitment by bringing in correctional officer trainees at the GS-5 level. Between October 28 and February 10, a total of 77 trainees have been recruited and are presently undergoing training and assignment. When these new staff members have all been assigned, the Department will have filled all existing correctional officer vacancies, including the 35 new positions authorized by Congress. 6.20-To assist inmates in dealing with family and personal problems while incarcerated, the jail should establish the position of director of counseling. The position of director of counseling at the pail was planned for in the restructuring of the Department. In February 1968 the position was officially established and filled, and two supporting positions also were filled. Initially, intake and classification duties occupied much of the time of two of these positions. It is anticipated that the counseling in family and personal problems will be more adequately dealt with when the jail overcrowding is relieved. 6.21-A diagnostic and outpatient clinic should be constructed, preferably adjacent to, but separate from, the new detention faciliy. The establishment of a central diagnostic and outpatient clinic was originally included in the planning of the new detention facility. A diagnosic capability was also included in the plan for restructuring of the Department, with the location to be in the Psychological Services Center at the correctional complex at Lorton. When disapproval of planning funds for the detention facility appeared likely, discussions were entered into with the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation to set up an expanded and comprehensive Diagnostic-Prognostic Center at the complex. Negotiations were completed in August 1968, and the Center (under the new name of Evaluation-Training Center) began operation on a limited scale on October 14, 1968. The Center has operated with a staff of about seven persons during its first months. These staff members have recently been joined by three Vocational Rehabilitation staff, who will ultimately be joined by others to make up about three-fourths of the total Evaluation-Training staff. In the fully operating activity, about 10 Department of Corrections and about 30 Vocational Rehabilitation staff will be involved. 6.22-The Department of Corrections should establish a Correctional Training Academy to train correctional officers as well as employees and representatives of the courts, juvenile institutions, and related private agencies. After months of inability to recruit a director of the Training Academy planning project because of the temporary character of the assignment, a decision was made to combine the Academy planning and research direction roles and recruit a person for the vacant chief of research position who could handle both roles: The Department was successful in recruiting Dr. Barry Brown, a clinical psychologist with both correctional research experience and training planning experience in the Federal Bureau of Prisons and in the field of mental health. Dr. Brown reported for duty on December 2, 1968. The Office of Law Enforcement Assistance, which had approved the grant for Training Academy planning effective June 1, 1968, has extended the period of the grant so that it terminates on March 31, 1969. If a full 5 months of planning are required to develop the structure and procedures of the proposed Training Academy, it will be necessary to request an additional extension of the planning grant. Initially, the operational program was to go into effect in April. However, because of the need for intensification of the training program in the Department, it is now planned that classes will begin in the latter part of February. 6.23-The Department of Corrections should contract with Federal Prison Industries, Inc., for the reorganization and future operation of the industries program of the Department. In April 1967 the Director of the Department of Corrections requested legislative authority to enter into an agreement with the Federal Prison Industries, Inc. This authority was granted by Congress in December 1967. In January and August 1968, Mr. Wade Markely of the Federal Prison Industries conducted two studies of the Department's industries. The second of the studies made four major recommendations and several minor suggestions. Action on the four major recommendations is as follows: (1) Industries accounting should be returned organizationally and physically to the Superintendent of Industries This recommendation was agreed to by the Associate Director for Administration. The action was completed in December 1968. (2) An accurate cost accounting system should be developed as an essential element of the accounting function Plans for the implementation of this recommendation have been in preparation for several weeks. The Superintendent of Industries has stated that cost accounting will go into effect shop by shop. It has taken place in the clothing shop; it will follow in the iron shop and the printshop. Full implementation of this recommendation is expected within a few weeks. (3) A producton control unit should be established to insure optimization of the industries operations A personnel form has been initiated and submitted to personnel requesting action on the establishment and filling of a position of chief of production. Industries has not yet received word on the probable date of completed action on this request. (4) An incentive wage system for inmates should be established Work on this recommendation is still in the planning stage. It was anticipated that an incentive system would be operational in the furniture repair shop by January 1968, but there has been a delay in implementation. After the furniture shop, similar systems will be introduced in the clothing and iron shops, then in the remaining industrial shops. Other suggestions Several other suggestions or recommendations in the Markely report have led to the following actions: (1) Plans have been completed for the relocation of the pattern shop and the machine shop to obtain more efficient operations; (2) two industries employees were sent to the Federal institution at Lewisburg to study the clothing shop layout and to come back with ideas for redesigning the DCDC clothing shop in line with advanced production methods and practices; (3) purchase orders have been prepared and submitted for approximately $30,000 worth of modern equipment to upgrade operations in the printshop, the laundry, and the foundry. Industries is reviewing equipment needs in all other shops; (4) plans have been completed for the establishment of two new vocational training classes-woodworking and metalworking-in the industries division, and a course in sewing machine repair is presently under consideration; (5) plans are well along for a metal furniture repair program, and a data processing training program has been established at the Youth Center. 6.24 The Public Health Service should assume responsibility for the operation of all medical and health facilities in the District's penal institutions. The department has received and reviewed the Public Health Service's report (submitted in September 1968) on medical and health facilities and services in the correctional institutions of the department. Medical staff of the department drafted a statement in response to the report. The statement is a proposal for a 5-year health program, which plans for the implementation of the major recommendations of the report in a series of six steps or phases over a period of years. In addition to the draft proposal, other preliminary actions have been taken in line with the recommendations of the report: (1) The director has recommended that the chief medical officer be given the status of associate director; (2) The acting associate director for medical services has initiated the following: (a) A review and revision of the medical personnel organization; (b) a revision of the structure of the institutional health units; (c) a revision of the manual of operating procedures; (d) a revision of the controls over dangerous drugs and narcotics; (e) a proposal for the appointment of a medical recommendations committee, a medical utilization committee, and a medical grievance committee; and (f) an order to standardize forms and reports as well as methods for the evaluation of medical care. The 5-year health program has been reviewed by departmental staff, and revisions are being made. The proposal is being put in final form, and budget requests are being made to implement the first phases of the proposal. 6.25 The expansion of work release programs for both felons and misdemeanants should be encouraged and fully supported by the District of Columbia government. The work release program has operated for many weeks under a state of uncertainity as to future location. Several plans for relocating the activity have been considered, primarily as a result of overcrowding at the District of Colum bia jail and the belief that the overcrowding should be relieved in part by using cellblock 4, the present site of the work release unit, for housing jail inmates. The principal new sites under consideration are (1) the workhouse at the Lorton reservation; (2) the National Training School plant; (3) two large vacant residences in the Northwest area of Washington; and (4) a mortician's large establishment, recently vacated in north central District of Columbia. No firm decision has yet been reached on any of these locations, partly because overcrowding at the jail was temporarily relieved by transfer of some jail inmates to the maximum security unit at Lorton. In addition to the above four locations, consideration was given to the possible use of two vacant floors in one wing of the District of Columbia General Hospital. This site was found to be unavailable for the purposes of a work release unit. A draft proposal has been developed by Planning and Research for the expansion of work release into the community by placing work release eligibles in residence units that would hold approximately 50 men and require a staff of about 10 officers, social workers, clerical and administrative staff. These units could be added as needed to accommodate an expanding work release population. It is estimated that the units could be implemented at a cost of about $6.20 daily per resident, allowing $86,000 for salaries, $16,800 for rent, and $10,000 for other expenses annually. The population of the work release unit on February 10 was 119. The Planning and Research proposal calls for expansion to 350 by the end of fiscal year 1971. 6.26-A variety of community-based rehabilitation programs should be estab lished. The Department of Corrections should be provided with the funds to assume the operation of the District's prerelease guidance center. The Department assumed operational control of the Community Treatment Center for Youth, 1817 13th Street NW., on July 1, 1967. The Department entered into a contract with the Bureau of Rehabilitation, effective July 1, 1968, and amended October 1, 1968, for the safekeeping, care, and subsistence of males and females held under the authority of any District of Columbia statute in Shaw Residence (1770 Park Road NW.), in the Residential Treatment Center for Drug Addicts (519 C Street NE.), and in the residential treatment program for females (2019 19th Street NW.). Discussions have been held with the Bureau of Rehabilitation about the development of work release residential centers that would be used by the Department of Corrections under contract with the Bureau. A proposal for a youth crime control project has been drawn up and discussed with several agencies. This project would divert youthful offenders of selected types from placement in the District of Columbia Youth Center in favor of treatment in a community-based center. It is estimated that costs in the project would be only about two-thirds that of the present Youth Center and recidivism rates after treatment would be lower for project graduates than for center graduates. Possibly as many as one-half the Youth Center intake could be managed in such a project, thus averting the need for future construction of new dormitories and other buildings at the Youth Center. The Ford Foundation suggested that the costs of the project might be handled by a consortium of agencies, organized through discussion at the Mayor-Commissioner's Office. The project is also being proposed for inclusion in the 1971 budget. 6.27 Community service centers should be developed in Washington to function as the locus for decentralized probation, parole, and other rehabilitative services. Effective the week of November 11, 1968, the Community Services Division of the Department began providing decentralized parole services through Community Facilities Center No. 1, North Capitol and K Streets NW. Space sufficient to accommodate one parole unit, five officers, was provided in the Center, but at present only one office is suitable for occupancy. The Parole Division is staffing the Center, room 309, from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. At least one parole officer will be at the Center on a rotating basis from Monday through Thursday. These 2 hours at the Center are devoted to interviewing and counseling releasees who are difficult to contact personally during normal working hours. Instructions for releasees to report to the Center have to be arranged prior to each parole officer's night at the Center. Current plans call for several decentralized parole service centers, with implementation to occur in the next 2 years. Funds are being requested in the 1970 budget. |