N.C. Department of
Correction--Correction News--September 1998
Division of Prisons begins conversion
to region structure
All five regions should be
operational by year's end
As the division of prisons begins its
reorganization under the region concept, prison superintendents
are pulling out their policy and procedure manuals, making sure
they know exactly what’s inside. For many, this is the first
time as superintendents that they have been charged with making
final decisions on what happens at their facilities. And for
some, that’s a real challenge.
"I’ve been a recommender for so long,
that I wasn’t real sure that I knew how to make
decisions," said Robert Elliott, superintendent of the
Caldwell Correctional Center. "Regionalism has caused senior
staff to dig deeply into their policy and procedure manuals. We
thought we knew what they said, but now that we’re
responsible for the final decisions being made, we needed to make
sure."
Elliott and 23 other superintendents in the
western part of the state are the first to experience the new
region concept firsthand. The western region opened May 1, and
the remaining four regions should be up and running by the end of
the year.
Under the region concept, the superintendents
and prison staff are having to learn how to operate without the
assistance of an area office. So far, things seem to be going
well.
"I’m past the 30-year mark, so for
me, it’s a little bit of a challenge to change, but I’m
having a good time doing it," Elliott said. "So far,
we’ve had a lot of positive changes. This is something that
was long overdue."
William "Corky" Anderson,
superintendent of Craggy Correctional Center, said he believes
the region structure is going to improve the way business is done
at the prisons.
"I think anytime that decisions can be
made as close to the local level as they can by the people
actually involved in the hands-on, day-to-day dealings with the
inmates and citizens, it has to work much better," he said.
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With the closing of the area offices,
Secretary Mack Jarvis said the region structure should
push decisions down to the lowest possible level,
eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and develop an
efficient and effective organizational structure. Under
the region concept, all facilities in a specific
geographic area will fall under the supervision of a
region director whose office will be centrally located
within the region. Western Region
Director Steve Bailey said the region structure makes it
much easier for managers to visit all the units under
their supervision compared with the command structure
that encompassed prisons spread all across the state.
"Now, within a couple of days, I
could, conceivably, drive to every prison in my
region," he said. "That was part of the
rationale - pull the units together so they have more
support within a region. In the west, we had female,
youth, large institutions and number of geographic units
all doing their own thing. There was not a lot of
interaction. Now, we are seeing the benefits of everyone
in a region coming together, being a team. They still
have specialized missions, but they all work
together."
|
Under the new setup, the region director and a
small, specialized staff provide guidance, consultation, and
oversight to the superintendents and staff at the various
facilities within a region. In general, region offices will have
a director, an operations manager who will oversee operational
and security issues, a programs coordinator, an administrative
services coordinator and various clerical staff.
Despite the absence of the assistance from an
area office, superintendents are finding that regionalization
does not necessarily mean more work.
"With regionalization we probably have
less work, because, now, we don’t have to fill out the extra
papers and take the extra steps of sending things into someone
else," Anderson said. "Now, we know what money we can
spend. If we need something, then we get it. Before, we had to
ask permission, because we didn’t have control of the money.
That slowed the process down."
Elliott said having good staff is one way his
unit has survived the transition.
"It’s an absolute necessity to have
staff at the local unit willing to take on new duties," he
said. "This is the first time that superintendents are
entirely responsible for their budgets, and I am fortunate in
that I have a good accounting clerk who is good in budgetary
issues. Regionalization is helping to make staff more accountable
for their actions."
In addition to the regionalization of the
Division of Prisons, the department has also regionalized several
support sections by putting personnel, MIS and OSDT offices in
each region. u
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