| DOC Developing New Staffing Standards |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, October 15, 1999
The Oregon Department of Corrections received two grants this month from the National Institute of Corrections to study several internal practices regarding security.
The first grant will enable the department to review unusual incidents within prisons to determine if a pattern(s) emerges. The results will be used to develop recommendations regarding steps that can be taken to reduce risk over time.
The second grant is for technical assistance in developing a staffing standard for the department. The initial focus will be male, medium or higher custody facilities, and will center on security staffing standards. Future phases will look at minimum custody facilities, non-security staffing standards, and those institutions that house female offenders.
Because of ballot initiatives and legislation approved over the last several years such as Ballot Measure 11 and Senate Bill 1145, the state's inmate population increasingly includes more violent offenders serving longer and longer sentences. Concurrently, the department is losing incentives to motivate inmates to behave well such as earned time.
These emerging issues plus the rapid expansion of the state prison system have given the Department of Corrections reason to challenge some of its own longstanding practices regarding staff training. With the staffing standards, an appropriate level of training for non-security staff who work with inmates will be identified.
The department's timeline requires that the project team be done with its work by May, 2000. This timeline will allow the department to report its staffing analysis and work on this issue at the June meeting of the Legislative Emergency Board.
The National Institute of Corrections provides technical assistance grants to correctional agencies nationwide to fund projects they would otherwise be unable to pursue.
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last revision 2-22-2000 peg cook
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