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| Former Missouri corrections chief gets NY post |
| By stltoday.com |
| Published: 09/11/2009 |
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JEFFERSON CITY — Dora Schriro, who ran the Missouri Department of Corrections under Gov. Mel Carnahan, is the new corrections chief for New York City. With the post, Schriro comes full circle. A Long Island, New York, native, she was assistant commissioner for the Department of Corrections in New York City when she came to St. Louis in 1989 to run the City Workhouse. When Carnahan tapped her to run the Missouri prison system, she was the first woman director in that predominantly male agency. She stressed education and job training for inmates, to cut down on recidivism once they leave the system. One of her favorite phrases, taken from a 1994 story about a boot camp she proposed, was: “Get their buns out of bed” and to work. After leaving Missouri, Schriro oversaw Arizona’s prisons. Here is the Associated Press story on her latest career move: BY CRISTIAN SALAZAR Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) — When she led the Arizona prison system, Dora Schriro championed a program that encouraged inmates to buy treats such as ice cream sandwiches. Money from the sales went to victims’ groups. It was one of the quirkier initiatives that Schriro, appointed Wednesday to run the New York City’s Department of Correction, introduced as part of her signature experiment transforming Arizona’s prison system into what she referred to as a “parallel universe.” Under the strategy, prison life would resemble the outside world as much as possible so that inmates could re-enter society with the knowledge to be law-abiding citizens. “The goal is to cultivate in offenders the skills that yield civil, productive conduct,” she wrote in a briefing published by the National Institute of Justice. It is likely that Schriro, who begins work on Sept. 21, will bring some of the same modern corrections strategies to her new job as jails chief. She enters the job as the city’s penal system faces scrutiny over the fatal beating of an inmate, accusations that correction officers let a “Lord of the Flies”-style crew of inmates enforce rules at a jail through violence, and a bar mitzvah held at a lockup for a prisoner’s son. Schriro said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that her plan is not simply to replicate the reforms she brought to Arizona. The ice cream purchases were among several ways to make inmates more aware of their impact on others, she said. “What I bring to the position is a capacity to figure out what might need to be fixed and what could be brought in and what’s new and better,” Schriro said. The city’s penal system, including the 400-acre Rikers Island jail complex, has a $1 billion budget and an average daily inmate population of more than 13,000, most of them pretrial detainees. They are overseen by about 9,000 correction officers. For the past six months, Schriro has led the Office of Detention Policy and Planning for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where she was helping to reform the sprawling immigration detention system, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Her departure disappointed immigration reform advocates. “She brought extensive experience, a commitment to reforming the system and a valued, evidenced-based approach to her work,” said Andrea Black, network coordinator for the Detention Watch Network. Schriro said speculation that her departure is related to internal strife “is flat out incorrect.” Her parents are elderly and she wants to be near them, she said. “In work, I’ve always done things the best I knew how, doing things for the right reasons and I need to do that in my personal life too,” she said. Shriro said she plans to make recommendations for the immigration detention system to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Naplitano before leaving. Schriro, who has more than 30 years of experience in correction, has led the Arizona and Missouri corrections departments. She also worked as assistant commissioner for New York City’s Department of Correction from 1985 to 1989. But she earned her national reputation as a corrections expert with her theories on prison management, which she has implemented in the prison systems that she has run, efforts that are not without their critics. Donna Leone Hamm, the director of the Arizona-based Middle Ground Prison Reform Inc., calls the “parallel universe” idea a “gimmick.” “It’s a catchy phrase, and it was absolutely meaningless in its execution,” Hamm said. “She absolutely ignored the core problems that must be dealt with in the prison system.” Read More. |
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