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| Tenn. Prison Chief Educating Self on Life Behind Bars |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/06/2003 |
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'My overall view of prisons was from watching TV, having seen 'Shawshank Redemption,' watching 'Oz,' or 'Cool Hand Luke,' or 'Escape from Alcatraz,'' he said with a laugh during a recent interview. White, a former defense attorney and federal prosecutor, has worked to change his view to one informed by reality in the months since taking office in January with Gov. Phil Bredesen's administration. 'I've been to every one of them three times at least,' he said of the state's 15 penal institutions. 'I wanted to understand and get an appreciation for what my wardens' jobs and responsibilities are, how they approach them.' White's quest for knowledge isn't unique to his new job. While serving as executive director of 100 Black Men of Middle Tennessee -- an organization that promotes personal and educational achievement for underprivileged teens -- White displayed the same commitment to learning, said Adrien Granderson, the nonprofit agency's new director. Granderson, who worked with White four years in the late 1990s, said, 'I can't say enough about the drive and dedication he has when he believes in a project.' White, 43, joined a Correction Department on the verge of expansion, as the state ramps up long-delayed plans to spend $107 million on a new men's prison to accommodate Tennessee's growing inmate population. Correction officials estimate the state will need 4,434 more inmate beds by January 2012. Currently, about 26,000 felons are incarcerated in Tennessee prisons and county jails. White updated the Legislature's Corrections Oversight Committee this month on a prison site-selection process that has spanned more than four years and two gubernatorial administrations. White said the state has narrowed its choices to five sites, one each in Trousdale, Morgan and Bledsoe counties and two in Weakley County. While he says no one area is ranked higher than the others, he does acknowledge 'a tremendous need for a new facility in East Tennessee, largely because we have a lot of beds in West Tennessee.' Half of the 14 men's prisons the state uses are in West Tennessee. Born and raised in Colfax, La., White graduated from Southern University in Baton Rouge with a broadcasting and journalism major. While a communications office intern for Gov. David Treen of Louisiana, he got interested in law after watching attorneys in action at the Capitol. 'I thought, 'Lawyers control everything,' ' he recalled. Ultimately, White chose a new career path, becoming an Army attorney after earning his law degree at Southern. In 1990, he left the military to become an attorney and adviser for the U.S. Federal Service Impasse Panel, a Washington agency that resolves stalemates between federal agencies and federal employee unions. Two years later he moved to Nashville to become an assistant public defender, and then in 1995 he joined 100 Black Men. He returned to law in 2000 when he was appointed by President Clinton as U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, a position he held one year before returning to private practice. White says the commissioner's position offered late last year by Bredesen was completely unexpected. Though the job was something he 'definitely had to think about,' it ultimately proved a challenge the self-described leader couldn't resist. 'The most appealing' aspect 'was the fact that it was a job with statewide responsibility,' he said. 'It also was' a department 'with a fairly large budget, so the opportunity was there to manage resources as well as manage people.' |
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