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| Coffee Creek Superintendent Takes on Prison Challenges |
| By The Oregonian |
| Published: 11/20/2002 |
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Each morning, long before the sun rises, Joan Palmateer pulls on enough clothes to ward off the autumn chill and hits the streets for what she calls 'a little quiet time.' Her walks take her along the dimly lit avenues near her Tualatin home. Little but the occasional cranking of a car engine or the barking of a nervous dog punctuates the predawn darkness. 'I think about the day ahead, the weeks ahead, the things I might have forgotten to follow up on,' Palmateer said. 'All the things I know I won't have time for when I get to work.' These moments are precious. Palmateer knows from experience that the time for quiet reflections will end abruptly in an hour or two, when she steps into her job as superintendent of Oregon's only women's prison. The $171 million Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, housing 1,015 inmates, is marking its first year of operation. Palmateer, who directed the project from groundbreaking to completion, will deliver something akin to a state of the prison report today in a 7:30 p.m. talk to the Sherwood Pachyderm Club. Much of Palmateer's report consists of good news: No walk-aways by minimum-security prisoners working outside the razor-ribboned fences; no lingering lawsuits filed by neighbors who initially protested the project; no raging inmates angry enough to do the unthinkable by taking a swing at Palmateer. 'Although one came close,' recounted Palmateer. As the first woman to head the men's penitentiary in Salem, she has had plenty of experience with challenges from combative inmates. 'One young lady who has quite a mouth on her stood up one day and challenged me in the day room in front of all the women. The rest were bright enough to back off and leave her alone. I finally got her to sit down and realize this is just how it's going to be.' Budget cuts loom Palmateer can chalk that one up as a victory. On other fronts, things are anything but calm at Coffee Creek these days. The turbulence comes in the form of spending cuts looming for the Department of Corrections if Oregon voters don't pass a $315 million temporary income-tax increase Jan. 28. The increase would help bridge the $482 million shortfall in the state's $12 billion 2002-03 budget. Although it's uncertain how much each state prison would lose if the measure fails, department budget analysts expect to take a hit of at least $21 million. That would come on top of nearly $70 million the department has had to cut in the past two years, said Perrin Damon, Corrections Department spokeswoman. Systemwide, such cuts translate to closing five prisons, laying off a projected 923 staff members and releasing 3,000 of the state's 11,600 inmates, Damon said. Making those cuts wouldn't be easy, said Ben DeHaan, acting corrections director. The reason is a little-remembered 1994 ballot measure that passed at the same time as Measure 11, which mandated longer prison sentences. Measure 10, its companion, requires a two-thirds super-majority of the Legislature to agree to the early release of anyone sentenced under Measure 11. Given the political climate in Salem, it's not likely many legislators would go on record as supporting early releases. 'As it's now set up, the system is almost impossible to shrink,' DeHaan said. 'It's almost elegant in the way it was set up.' Any reductions would almost certainly include Coffee Creek. Neither Palmateer nor anyone else knows precisely what form those cuts could take. One obvious place to cut is personnel, which constitutes the largest share of any prison's budget. That wouldn't be good news to Palmateer, whose staffing level of 200 falls considerably short of the 220 that is considered full staffing. A model system Palmateer took the job with the idea of making Coffee Creek the first prison in Oregon to implement from scratch what the department calls the Oregon Accountability Model. The model, rooted in the notion of inmate accountability, ascertains risk factors for inmates as soon as they enter the system. Such factors include histories of drug or physical abuse, poor family backgrounds, lack of educational attainment or possible gang involvement. The inmate is guided to programs designed to help her recognize vulnerability to such risks and seek remedies to avoid them upon release. Widespread cuts would put a serious dent into Palmateer's hopes of fully implementing the model. 'It's like our Bible now,' she said. 'We've lived it and breathed it from day one. It would be very frustrating knowing we may not be able to maintain the programs and philosophy and vision we think can make such a difference.' Winning converts Throughout the area, Palmateer is winning converts to her cause. The number of volunteers working at Coffee Creek, drawn from Wilsonville, Sherwood, Tualatin and beyond -- more than three dozen -- is more than at any other penal institution in the state. Brit Adams, executive director of the Wilsonville Chamber of Commerce, recalled the initial opposition Palmateer and the prison faced. Since then, he said, Palmateer has almost single-handedly won neighbors to her side. 'What strikes me about Joan is that once you get to know her, you have the utmost confidence that the absolute best possible person is in our community operating that facility,' Adams said. 'She is incredibly competent and comes across as an extraordinarily genuine person.' DeHaan, the acting corrections director, also gives Palmateer high marks. Having sat through stormy public meetings before the prison's siting at Day Road was made formal, he knows full well how angry residents in Wilsonville, Tualatin and Sherwood were, not only about the location of the prison but also about its existence in the metro area. 'A lot of the acceptance we've seen came about on the force of her personality,' he said. 'She's all business, and people respect that.' |
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There is a lot of information on this website about inmates and prison guards. I didn’t realize what was going on in our prison system until I discovered this website. Similarly, I didn’t understand litigation finance until I read more from Hamilton Lindley who is a litigation finance expert based in Texas.