County detention center making progress

MANAGING EDITOR

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The Roosevelt County Detention Center is a work in progress, but it’s getting there, according to County Manager Amber Hamilton.

In February, Hamilton hired Contractor Sandra Stewart, who has 20 years experience in the criminal justice system and 10 years in the corrections field, to not only assess where RCDC is at in the process to become state accredited, but also to help them to complete the process.

Stewart received media criticism earlier this year when she resigned from her governor-appointed position as juvenile justice services division director in March.

In the position, Stewart worked over four juvenile corrections facilities and four re-integration facilities, one of which was Lincoln Pines Youth Center just outside Ruidoso. The facility closed in February due to an alleged inappropriate relationship between an employee and a juvenile.

Although media outlets highlighted Stewart’s resignation as being connected to the instance, Stewart said her resignation had nothing to do with the situation with the investigation being completed by the time she left her position.

“I was over Lincoln Pines in the respect that it was one of my four secure facilities; I did not work in that facility, but it fell under my umbrella,” she said, adding that she was on the road continuously because she had 944 employees across the state.

“I was growing very weary of all the travel, and last Christmas, my family and I had a lengthy discussion about the travel wearing on me and wearing on them, because I was never home, and my husband is disabled, and it was certainly wearing on him,” Stewart said of her reasons for resigning, adding that she was surprised to see the newspaper stories that came out afterwards, indicating her resignation was connected to Lincoln Pines.

As for the accreditation process, Stewart said unlike most states, New Mexico does not have a licensing or regulatory authority over adult detention facilities, so it is not state law to be accredited by living up to state standards. It’s voluntary.

She said in 2007, the New Mexico Association of Counties created an accreditation board to create 208 state standards for corrections facilities. Several more standards have been added since.

“I think they did so with the hope that as one became accredited, more would become accredited and eventually, they could go to the legislature and have it reduced to state law,” Stewart said.

She said she and RCDC Administrator David Casanova were both on the initial accreditation board as well as the initial council which reviewed the first applications for the process.

Stewart said the Chaves County Detention Center, which she operated at the time, was the first to become accredited in 2011 and several other counties have followed suit since.

She said the idea behind the state standards is that any detention facility following them “would be running their facility based on nationally-accepted, evidence-based best practices.”

As incentive for becoming accredited, if a detention facility is part of the NMAC insurance, it receives a reduction in insurance premiums after becoming accredited.

Hamilton said RCDC is about a year into the two-year process but is still trying to finish the first step of the process, which is updating, improving and creating new policies.

Following the first step will be ensuring those policies are regularly exercised as well as site visits from an accreditation council, said Hamilton.

“Sometimes staffing issues can create delay,” Stewart said. “If they feel like they need to request an extension, the council would certainly consider it, and they would have a good chance of getting one.”

Hamilton said RCDC is sitting at a 75 percent turnover rate, so Stewart has been looking at various areas of the center to identify issues.

“There’s always going to be a naturally high turnover within corrections, but naturally high could be somewhere along the lines of 30 to 40 percent.

Anytime you get above 50, you want to start looking,” Hamilton said. “Other counties are closer to 100, so it could always be worse, but we can always look at other things that need to be addressed, because there are usually underlying issues when you deal with that much turnover.”

“There’s been numerous opportunities for improvement that Sandra has accurately identified,” Hamilton added. “Every day, there are multiple opportunities for improvement. We’ve been able to do a lot of on-site, on the job, active training that has really been beneficial to the facility team.”

Other than improvements to policies and training, Hamilton did not elaborate on any other issues, saying bringing someone in from the outside gives a “fresh perspective” and allows for catching issues which someone regularly at the facility may not catch.

“She has turned out an incredible amount of policies in the last four weeks, but as a result of that, it has gotten us to a point where we’re much more equipped,” Hamilton said. “I think it’s that way in any situation. You just need that objectivity and a variance in perception, because we get comfortable where we’re at.”