New state corrections director looks to make changes

Sunday, November 20th 2005, 12:09 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Justin Jones, the state's new corrections director, has spent some time inside prison walls _ the one thing he has in common with aviation pioneer Wylie Post, the most famous native of Jones' hometown of Maysville.

A fact little known to some is that Post, as a young man, took to highway robbery and wound up doing time in the Oklahoma State Reformatory at Granite. He was pardoned after he became famous.

As an aspiring journalist, Jones wrote an article on Post for The Oklahoman's Orbit magazine and still enjoys writing about his experiences in 27 years of corrections work.

Jones, who will make $120,000 a year in his new post, hopes to draw on his practical knowledge of prisons and a pool of research by corrections experts to bring cost-saving reforms to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

He wants to employ ``best practices'' developed in the last decade in the corrections field to every facet of the state prison system, from running canteens, to treating drug abusers, to dispensing medical services.

``The definition of best practices is it is research-based, data-driven and quality efficient,'' he said.

Beginning in January, Jones said, he will have staff conducting a ``unit-by-unit'' assessment of the way state prisons operate, bringing in experts to help identify efficiencies that can be made.

``The idea is to save money,'' he said. ``The idea is also to do the best practices that have been identified in our profession. In most cases, the best practices also are the most efficient for your dollar.

``When I talk about an evaluation process, I'm talking about looking at the number of full-time employees it takes to do those duties. What's the cost analysis of everything we do? Do we have policies that we have control over that are costing us more money to implement and operate than the result we are trying to derive from them?''

Jones, who replaces Ron Ward, is taking over a $400 million agency under difficult circumstances. His agency is facing a $29 million budget shortfall and has been plagued recently by a spate of fights and escapes at prisons, blamed largely on a shortage of correctional officers.

Another complication, which he downplays, is the fact that a few days after he was hired, he had surgery on his shoulder to remove bone spurs. He was back on the job in two days, even though he says he can't tie his tie and needs help getting dressed in the morning.

``There's no good time for surgery, I guess,'' said Jones, who speculated that his active lifestyle contributed to his shoulder problems. He used to lift weights a lot and has been an avid runner and bicyclist.

Raising the pay of correctional officers is a top goal. The Board of Corrections recently adopted a resolution to increase the pay of officers by $200 a month.

Ironically, those pay raises would be paid for by payroll funds that have gone unused because of the inability of the agency to hire and retain officers for the past several months. The raises will increase the pay of a beginning officer to about $23,000 a year. Officials are hoping lawmakers will approve additional pay increases.

Jones is optimistic about what he can accomplish, despite the prospect that the prison population will continue to grow because of policies such as life without parole for some offenses and a requirement that other inmates serve 85 percent of their terms.

``I don't have an opinion one way or another if the 85 percent law is something that is absolutely necessary or not,'' he said. ``I don't have an opinion on whether life without parole is the best thing, because I've not been the victim of that perpetrator.

``But what I can say is if we are going to continue those type of sentencing practices, it costs money. As we go into the next generation, people are living longer and those offenders will be getting older. They will need more medication.''

Jones says the state prison system is projected to grow by more than 500 inmates a year in the next several years, or ``about a half of a medium security prison a year.''

``I will grant you, funding corrections is not that popular, but it is necessary,'' he said. ``I'm not a politician; I'm a public servant. I will make recommendations and attempt to do what is best for the agency and the public I serve and I'm sure that the people at the Capitol will do their best also.''

He said he believes the public expects corrections officials to do what they can to reduce recidivism and make it less likely that inmates commit more crimes when they are released.

``We have not done a very good job of that,'' he said.

He said he was ``a big proponent of Career Tech in our system,'' and also has been active in ``front-end'' programs such as drug courts and community corrections.

Jones began his career as a parole officer and later was administrator of prison receptions, warden and deputy director of community sentencing.

``There are a lot of wonderful things going on in corrections. We just need to do a lot more of them,'' he said.