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| OpED: Award deserved for lifetime of service |
| By Jon Ozmint, Director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections |
| Published: 09/07/2008 |
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One of South Carolina’s finest public servants was recently honored by the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) when Parker Evatt received the Louie Wainwright Past Presidents Award. The award is presented annually to a former director who has contributed to corrections throughout their career and into retirement. Mr. Evatt’s last official post of service was as our state’s last corrections commissioner and our state’s first corrections director. But, his service to South Carolina went well beyond those years. Mr. Evatt started his career as Ensign Evatt, serving three years on active duty with the U.S. Navy, from 1958-1960. His naval career continued until 1986, when he retired from the Navy Reserves in 1986 with the rank of Commander. From 1966 to 1987, Mr. Evatt served as the Executive Director of the Alston Wilkes Society, a private organization that worked side by side with prisons, jails and probation/parole authorities to operate programs and coordinate volunteer programs for offenders both inside prisons and in the community. Mr. Evatt was the first employee of the Alston Wilkes Society. He took over with $5,000 and one inmate clerk. When he left 21 years later, the agency had a budget of $3.5 million, 130 employees and more than 6,000 members. Perhaps his greatest legacy is the continued presence and impact of the Alston Wilkes Society more than 20 years after his departure. From 1974 until 1987, Mr. Evatt also served in the S.C. House of Representatives. While there he was a champion for corrections, a courageous stance and a rare commodity in a tough-on-crime state like South Carolina. He sponsored legislation that created a fee program for probationers, a children’s code, a victim’s compensation fund, work release programs, and earned work credits for inmates. In 1987, Governor Carroll Campbell appointed Mr. Evatt to serve as the Commissioner for the Department of Corrections. He served until 1995. Under his leadership, SCDC started a day care center for the children of SCDC employees, and leadership training for senior managers. He expanded literacy programs and drug and alcohol treatment for inmates. Mr. Evatt ended the practice of conjugal visits, eliminated inmate drivers and began the process of implementing a cashless canteen system for inmates. He also implemented the state’s first Shock Incarceration program. Mr. Evatt supervised the opening of seven new prisons including a new women’s prison. And, perhaps most significantly, he was responsible for the orderly closing of the infamous Central Correctional Institution, originally opened in 1966 and well beyond its safe and useful operational life. In 1994, he received the E.R. Cass Award, the highest honor bestowed by the American Correctional Association. In 1992, after limited restructuring of state government, Mr. Evatt became the first Corrections Director to serve in the governor’s cabinet. After his retirement, Mr. Evatt remained active in the American Correctional Association and ASCA as a former director. He has advised and consulted with correctional agencies and served on local and state boards and in his local church. For me and others, however, Parker has been an example and a friend. Before I took this job, I spoke with Parker. And I have sought his advice on many occasions since. Parker’s frank and accurate assessment about our legislature and the funding of this agency has been invaluable to me: he reminds me that we have a long history of budget difficulties. Somehow, there is comfort in that history. And, Parker is a true gentleman. He has served as an example of what a former corrections director should be. Always kind, restrained and able to grasp the realities of change and progress, Parker never provides fodder for the chorus of armchair critics in the cheap seats. His lifetime of service was deserving of this most recent recognition. |
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