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| RI's Corrections Director A.T. Wall 's - Profile |
| By Tom Mooney - Providence Journal |
| Published: 03/10/2009 |
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A.T. Wall is nation’s second-longest serving corrections director Providence RI - Nine years on the job, Ashbel T. Wall, the Yale-educated intellectual who found his passion in the despondent world of captivity, is now the nation’s second-longest serving director of corrections. And he might be the only one who lists his home address in the phone book. Certainly you won’t find Arkansas’ Larry Norris, the country’s longest-reigning corrections director, with 15 years of service, advertising where an ex-con with a grudge might find him. “Absolutely not,” says Norris. “A.T.’s one brave soul. He marches to a different drummer, I guess.” The contrast in style, or perhaps philosophy, seems all the more stark considering the award Wall recently received from the Association of State Correctional Administrators. In honoring Wall as director of the year, the group presented him with a medal in memory of Michael Francke, who while corrections director in Oregon in 1989 was murdered by a former inmate as he left his office.On a brutally cold morning last month, Wall welcomes two visitors to his home on the East Side of Providence where neighbors know him best as the jovial guy who wears shorts and hiking boots all winter long on his regular walks. “Rhode Island’s a small place and if people want to find you they can,” Wall, who is 55, explains as he prepares to head off to work. “I am a public official and I’m not afraid. And I think that if I have an unlisted phone number and try to hide my address it sends a message that I’ve got something to fear. And as far as I’m concerned, I don’t.” “I do make a lot of decisions that make people upset. And I have gotten some uncomfortable phone calls over the years and some unusual people have shown up around the house.” Like the boisterous crowd that once descended to advocate for more rights for prisoners. But, says Wall, “The police know where I live.” His public accessibility — a measure of how the job of Rhode Island corrections director has changed during his tenure — is a point of pride with Wall. Besides the overarching mission of protecting the public from criminals, Wall says his job includes demystifying a department that is now also striving to reduce crime by smoothing inmates’ transitions back into society through education and treatment programs. At graduation ceremonies for new correctional officers Wall will often be asked to deliver the “director’s address.” Taking advantage of the pun, Wall says he frequently starts off by giving the class his street address. “It’s a way of signaling I’m not concerned. If you want me, I’m accessible, I’m available, I’m not hiding from you.” He’s also been known to chase a few bad guys around the block. One night a few years ago he heard some commotion on a neighbor’s porch. Four men appeared up to no good. Wall yelled at them — itself out of character for anyone who knows the even-tempered man who never swears. “They saw me and ran. Why I ran after them I don’t know. Once in a while you get righteous, but I’m not a particularly rash person.” The incident ended with the strangers fleeing and Wall breaking his arm in a fall. “Any sensible person would have called 911,” he says. Outside his house, Wall starts the engine of his Chevrolet Impala, a state car equipped with emergency flashing lights he’s never had to use. He turns the heater on full but with the engine cold, the day’s single-digit temperatures invade the interior. Wall doesn’t appear to mind: “I love the cold.” “I really have had a very good run,” he says of his years leading a department with 1,400 employees and a $201-million budget. “No successful escapes from secure facilities, no homicides, neither staff nor inmates. No intervention by the federal courts. And I really do have to give credit to the staff. There is always a certain measure of conflict — confrontation in the air within the department — but on the ground, people do a terrific job.” Wall gives credit as well to his two predecessors. John J. Moran hired Wall away from Gov. Edward D. DiPrete’s policy team in 1986 to help navigate the department through crises of overcrowding, court injunctions to improve conditions and prison expansion projects. When George Vose took over from Moran in 1991, he leaned on Wall’s intellect to implement policies and bring the department up to federal standards. “They prepared me very well,” says Wall, “for the responsibilities of the job.” Moran and Vose were similar in ways that befit the stereotype of prison directors. Both were gruff chain-smokers who often spoke in the coarse parlance of their environment. Moran carried a shotgun in his trunk for a time. Vose fiercely protected his private life. Wall, who doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol or caffeinated beverages, deals with the stresses of the job differently: by satisfying a craving for Hershey’s mini chocolate bars. On a bad day, his staff says, he can devour dozens. “I would be loath to characterize their personalities,” Wall says of his two predecessors. “I tend to be upbeat and outgoing and that has allowed me to move out into the community and develop relationships that weren’t there before.” When Gov. Lincoln Almond appointed Wall director in 2000 to replace a departing Vose, Wall told The Journal: “I have what I think is mental toughness, which I would define as strength of character. I am not hair-triggered, but I make my expectations very clear. I am confident but I don’t think I’m a cocky person. I’m deliberative in a place where it’s advisable to think before you act.” On this day, Wall is touring one of the two medium-security prisons at the Adult Correctional Institutions, in Cranston, a practice he’s had little time for in recent months with the state budget crisis as well as his travels around the country. Wall’s steady advocacy for a “reintegration unit” for convicts heading out of prison — so far unrealized — has made him a popular speaker on the issue of easing criminals back into society. In many bigger states with prisons separated by hundreds of miles, a visit from the corrections director can involve all the pomp afforded a head of state. At the ACI, there isn’t even a parking space reserved for Wall. He searches for any open space in the visitors lot. He wears a blue suit with the trousers bunched up at the ankles above his new hiking boots. “I hated getting rid of my old ones but even my cobbler said it was time. When your cobbler tells you he can’t do anything more for you, you know it’s probably time to get another pair.” In true Yankee fashion, Wall had hung onto his old boots for about 13 years. Wall’s paternal roots in Rhode Island date back to the 1700s. His cousins run the A.T. Wall Co., the century-old metal manufacturing company based in Warwick. People often confuse him with the company. His maternal grandparents emigrated from Scotland to work in Rhode Island’s textile mills. His mother was a first-generation American.Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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