Prison managers identified where staff, inmates, equipment, supplies and finances would be moved. Advanced plans were a key, even tagging each piece of equipment and determining where it would be moved.
Goal-oriented management and caring about people helped Robert Parrott and the Division of Prisons Central Area Office in working through another complex task, preparing to open Warren Correctional Institution and consolidating five nearby prisons.
| "We selected prison managers and set up an action
plan to accomplish each task," Parrott said. "The
managers were given the responsibility to get it done
and they did it. It went smoothly." Prison managers identified where staff, inmates, equipment, supplies and finances would be moved. Advanced plans were a key, even tagging each piece of equipment and determining where it would be moved. | |
"Superintendents did a good job. In their work with people in the community, they gave them notice and time to prepare for the closings," said Ron Inscoe, assistant area administrator. "They made arrangements for surplus property and prepared files, getting them boxed and ready to move."
In other prison openings, staff are hired as preparations require. "Here, we were dependent on staff coming from prisons that we were still operating," said Inscoe.
Plans allowed each unit 30 days to close after the inmates were moved out. In each case, advanced planning allowed the units to close in a week. "We wanted to close the units and get the staff to the new prison for training," Parrott said.
Parrott joined the department in 1962 and has worked in the area office since 1974. He was named area administrator in 1994.
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