| Washington State Department of Corrections | |
|---|---|
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.svg) | |
 Badge patch of the Washington State Department of Corrections | |
| Abbreviation | WADOC |
| Motto | Working together for safe communities. |
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | July 1, 1981 |
| Preceding agency | |
| Employees | 11,385 (2019)[1] |
| Annual budget | $2.2 billionUSD (2021) |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction | Washington, United States |
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| Map of Washington State Department of Corrections's jurisdiction | |
| Size | 71,300 square miles (185,000 km2) |
| Population | 7.82 million (2025 est.) |
| General nature | |
| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | Tumwater, Washington |
| Peace Officers | Limited Authority |
| Agency executive |
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| Facilities | |
| Work releases | 16[3] |
| Prisons | 12[3] |
| Website | |
| Washington State Department of Corrections website | |
TheWashington State Department of Corrections (WADOC) is a department of the government of the State ofWashington. WADOC is responsible for administering adultcorrections programs operated by the state. This includes statecorrectional institutions and programs for people supervised in the community.[4] Its headquarters are inTumwater, Washington.[5]
The modern Washington Department of Corrections is a relatively young state agency. Agency oversight of correctional institutions in Washington State went through several transitions during the 20th century before the WADOC's creation in 1981.
Prior to the 1970s, state correctional facilities were managed by the Washington Department of Institutions.[6] governorDaniel J. Evans consolidated the Department of Institutions, Department of Public Assistance & Vocational Rehabilitation, and other related departments into theWashington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) in the 1970s.[7][8]
On July 1, 1981, theWashington State Legislature transferred the administration of adult correctional institutions from theWashington State Department of Social and Health Services, Division of Adult Corrections (DSHS) to the newly created Washington State Department of Corrections as part of the 1981 Corrections Reform Act.[9]
The Washington Department of Corrections organizational structure includes six major divisions:
Each division has an assistant secretary who oversees the division's operations.[4]
The secretary of corrections is the executive head of the department. The secretary is appointed by the governor with the consent of the state Senate.[4]
The department currently operates 11 adult prisons, of which 9 are male institutions and two are female institutions.[10] The department confines over 12,000 people in these facilities, with each varying in size and mission across the state.[11]
The Washington State Legislature in the 2025 legislative session passed a budget to close the Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women (MCCCW). Its closure is planned for September 2025, with all Incarcerated Individuals being moved to the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW). With MCCCW's closure, the WCCW will be the only facility left in the Women's Prison Division.
The department currently has 12work release facilities. All but two of these facilities are operated by contractors, who manage the daily safety and security and have oversight of the facilities full-time (24 hours a day, 7 days per week). Department staff are located on site to assist in supervision, monitoring, and case management of those under supervision, as well as monitoring of the contracts.[12]
Formerly incarcerated people housed in work release facilities have progressed from full confinement to partial confinement, and are required to seek, secure, and maintain employment in the community, as well as pay for their room and board. This model is designed to provide some foundation for employment and housing when the formerly incarcerated are released to communities.[8]
Community Supervision occurs at 86 varied locations in the community to include: field offices, community justice centers,Community Oriented Policing (COP) Shops and outstations. Activities of supervised people in the community are monitored, which includes home visits, by aCommunity Corrections Officer to ensure compliance with court, or known as the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB), which was the Washington State Board of Prison Terms and Paroles, only those individuals who have been deemed rehabilitated by the ISRB are placed on Parole and department conditions of supervision, such as Community Supervision and/or Community Custody.[8]
In 2014, GovernorJay Inslee announced a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty in Washington State.[13] According to Inslee, "Equal justice under the law is the state's primary responsibility. And in death penalty cases, I'm not convinced equal justice is being served. The use of the death penalty in this state is unequally applied, sometimes dependent on the budget of the county where the crime occurred."[13] The moratorium means that if a death penalty case comes to the governor's desk for action, he will issue a reprieve.[13] However, this action does not commute the sentences of those on death row or issue any pardons.[13] The majority of Washington's death penalty sentences are overturned and those convicted of capital offenses are rarely executed, indicating questionable sentencing in many cases.[13] Since 1981, the year Washington State's current capital laws were put in place, 32 defendants have been sentenced to die. Of those, 18 have had their sentences converted to life in prison and one was set free. This has raised issues in accountability, as there have been multiple inmates serving life sentences that have killed other inmates that have stated that there's nothing more they can do to them because they are already serving a life sentence.[13]
Prior to Inslee's moratorium, Washington's capital punishment law required that capital punishment imposed by the state's courts be carried out at theWashington State Penitentiary inWalla Walla. Procedures for conducting executions are supervised by the Penitentiary Superintendent.[14] Washington utilizes two methods of execution:lethal injection andhanging. Lethal injection is used unless the inmate under sentence of death chooses hanging as the preferred execution method.[14]
Within 10 days of a trial court entering a judgment and sentence imposing the death penalty, male defendants under sentence of death are transferred to the Penitentiary, where they remain in a segregation unit [Intensive Management Unit North (IMU-N) at the prison] pending appeals,[citation needed] and until a death warrant is issued setting the date for the execution. Female defendants under sentence of death are housed at theWashington Corrections Center for Women nearGig Harbor before being transferred to the Penitentiary no later than 72 hours prior to a scheduled execution,[15] also housed in IMU North, although the execution chamber is located in Unit 6.[citation needed]
78 persons have been executed in Washington since 1904, the most recent beingCal Coburn Brown, in 2010.[16][14]
As of 2023, the death penalty was repealed in Washington State.[17]
The Washington Department of Corrections revenue-generating, industry job training, and factory food production branch is Washington State Correctional Industries.[18] It is a member of theNational Correctional Industries Association.[19]
Correctional Industries began centralizing food production at theAirway Heights Correctional Center in 1995.[20] In the years since, freshly cooked food for incarcerated people in Washington prisons has gradually and in large part been replaced by factory processed, prepackaged food.
On May 21, 2015, The GEO Group announced the signing of a contract with the Washington Department of Corrections for the out-of-state housing of up to 1,000 prisoners at the company-owned North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin, Michigan, with a contract term of five years inclusive of renewal option periods.[21]
Under the Washington state Food Umbrella Contract, WA DOC's Correctional Industries procures products fromFood Services of America,Liberty Distributing,Medosweet Farms, Spokane Produce,Terry Dairy's,Triple "B" Corporations, andUnisource.[22] WA DOC also contracts with Evergreen Vending, Coca-Cola, and other private food vendors for its facility vending machines.
WA DOC contracts withJPay, a private company that charges the incarcerated and their families for electronic mail, photo-sharing, money transfer, and video visiting services.[23] Phone services for the incarcerated and their families are through WA DOC's contract withGlobal Tel Link.[24]
The secretary of corrections in Washington State is a cabinet level position appointed by the state governor. This position differs from the historical director of the Washington Department of Institutions in its educational requirements. In the 1950s and 1960s, Washington law mandated that directors of the Department of Institutions were required to hold graduate degrees.[6] The modern Washington Department of Corrections has no such requirements for its secretary of corrections.
Amos Reed, appointed by GovernorJohn Spellman, served as the first Washington state secretary of corrections from 1981 to 1986.[25]
Prior to his position as secretary, Reed served as an administrator in theOregon Department of Corrections from 1969 to 1975.[26]
Chase Riveland was appointed Secretary of Corrections by GovernorBooth Gardner in 1986.[27] He retired in 1997.[27] Riveland drew criticism from Republican lawmakers who felt he was not harsh enough on incarcerated people.[27] However, his cautions against politically-driven policies have proven prescient in the mass incarceration decades that followed his time as secretary.[28] By 2008, the number of people incarcerated in Washington had more than tripled since the time Riveland first came to WADOC.[28]
Joe Lehman was a graduate of St. Martin's College and Pacific Lutheran University. He spent 21 years as a probation and parole officer and deputy secretary in Washington's prison system. Lehman was appointed secretary of Corrections by GovernorGary Locke in 1997, and served until 2005.[27] Prior to serving as WADOC secretary, Lehman oversaw Pennsylvania's largest prison expansion in state history and then worked for the Maine correctional system.[27] In 1994, Lehman won the Association of State Correctional Administrators Francke Award.[29] Lehman's starting salary as WADOC secretary was $93,659[27] He oversaw WADOC at a time when the department had a budget of $765 million, with 12,825 incarcerated people and 6,300 employees][27]
Harold Clarke, appointed by GovernorChristine Gregoire, served as Secretary of Corrections from 2005 until his resignation in late 2007.[30][31] Prior to his appointment, he directed the Nebraska Department of Corrections, where he had climbed through the ranks for over twenty years. He resigned as WADOC secretary amid controversy over probation supervision to take a position as commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.[30]
Eldon Vail returned from retirement after 31 years with WADOC to serve as Acting Secretary of Corrections until his formal appointment as Secretary by GovernorChristine Gregoire in 2008.[31] Vail resigned amid controversy over an affair with a subordinate in 2011.[32]
Bernard Warner was appointed by GovernorChristine Gregoire as Secretary of Corrections in 2011.[33] Warner resigned in 2015 to take a position at a private Salt Lake City corrections industry.[34]
GovernorJay Inslee appointed Dan Pacholke Secretary of Corrections in 2015.[35] Pacholke began his career in WADOC in 1982 as a correctional officer at McNeil Island Corrections Center.[35] He worked his way through the ranks until he was appointed secretary. Pacholke resigned after a short tenure amid controversy over a WADOC computer glitch that caused the somewhat early release of approximately 3,000 incarcerated people over more than a decade.[36][37] Some formerly incarcerated people who had established new lives upon early release were reincarcerated in response to public and political outcry over the early releases.[37] The early release scandal became an expression of more complex political relationships in anticipation of the 2016 Washington State election season. In a resignation email to SenatorMike Padden—one of the most conservative members of the Washington State Senate's Law and Justice Committee—Pacholke wrote, "I notify you now of my resignation. I hope it helps meet your need for blood. I hope it gives you fodder for the press and fulfills your political needs so you can let this agency, our agency, heal."[38] Former secretary of corrections Bernie Warner told the media he did not know about the computer glitch until notified by GovernorJay Inslee's general counsel.[39] However, Pacholke told the media that Warner's assistant secretary knew of the mistaken early release of prisoners as early as 2012.[39] At least two people were killed in homicides linked to prisoners who had mistakenly been released early,[40] and families of the deceased in each of those cases went on to file wrongful death lawsuits against the agency.[41][42] One of those lawsuits resulted in a $3.25 million settlement paid out by the DOC.[43]
Since leaving WADOC, Pacholke has become the co-director at Segregation Solutions.[44] He co-authored a report with Sandy Felkey Mullins on segregation practices for theU.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance titled "More Than Emptying Beds: A Systems Approach to Segregation Reform".[45]
Richard "Dick" Morgan returned from retirement after more than three decades of employment with WA DOC to be appointed by GovernorJay Inslee as acting secretary, effective March 14, 2016.[46] He served in the role of secretary until January 12, 2017. Morgan had previously served as a member of the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board and of the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.[46]
FormerWashington State Department of Social and Health Services employeeJody Becker-Green was appointed by GovernorJay Inslee as acting secretary from January 10, 2017 to April 25, 2017, becoming the first woman to serve in this role.[47]
Stephen Sinclair was appointed WA DOC secretary by GovernorJay Inslee on April 25, 2017.[48] He began his career at the agency as a correctional officer and gained progressively greater responsibilities as investigator, sergeant, associate superintendent, superintendent and assistant secretary.
As superintendent of the Washington State Penitentiary, Sinclair created the Sustainable Practices Lab. In addition to his role as secretary, he was the DOC co-director of theSustainability in Prisons Project atThe Evergreen State College.
On April 29, 2021, Washington State GovernorJay Inslee appointed Cheryl Strange as the Washington DOC's first permanent female secretary.[49] Prior to her appointment, Strange was Secretary of theWashington State Department of Social and Health Services.[49] She had previously served as theCEO ofWestern State Hospital.[49] After retiring from the DOC in January 2025, Strange spent a four month stint as Secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services at the request of GovernorBob Ferguson.
On December 15, 2024, Governor-electBob Ferguson nominated Tim Lang to head WADOC after the retirement of Secretary Strange in January 2025. Previously, Tim Lang and Bob Fergusson worked together in the Washington State Attorney General's Office, With Bob Fergusson serving as Attorney General and Tim Lang leading the Corrections Division of the AGO. In his time as the head of the Corrections Division, Tim Lang was the lead counsel for WADOC during lawsuits and aided the department with legal inquiries. Tim Lang's appointment as WADOC Secretary was effective January 15, 2025.
WADOC is a paramilitary organization and values respect for chain of command and seniority. Custody ranks are modelled after military ranks. Officers are not given a rank, with Sergeants acting as the first line supervisors. Lieutenants are usually commanders of a shift, with them being regarded as more administrative than custody. Every level three custody facility has a Captain as the head of custody staff for the facility, with level two facilities having a Lieutenant as the head of custody staff. Some facilities, such as the Monroe Correctional Complex (MCC) has multiple Captains for the different units due to the size of the facility.
Non-management positions in the Washington Department of Corrections are negotiated by theTeamstersLocal 117labor union.[50] and the Washington Federation of State Employees.
WADOC Honor Guard protocols are governed by WADOC Policy 870.440.[51] Individual WADOC correctional facilities are not required to maintain an Honor Guard.[51] As of 2013, only five of WADOC's 11 facilities maintained an active Honor Guard.[51] Facility superintendents and Chiefs of Emergency Operation are responsible for selecting Honor Guard members and approving Honor Guard participation in local events.[51]
The most well-known line of duty death in recent WADOC history was that ofJayme Biendl in 2011.[52] This incident has been called "the Washington Department of Corrections9/11", as it resulted in dramatic changes to WADOC security protocols and programs for incarcerated people. An annual Behind the Badge memorial run is held in honor of Biendl's service.[53]
In 2007, the Washington Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) spearheaded legislative efforts to create an independent ombudsman position that would provide an alternative avenue of mediation between WADOC, WADOC staff, incarcerated people, and family members of the incarcerated.[54] The resulting bill, SB 5295—sponsored by state SenatorsJim Kastama,Dan Swecker,Karen Fraser,Jeanne Kohl-Welles,Chris Marr,Debbie Regala,Marilyn Rasmussen, andRosemary McAuliffe[54]—was not successful. In the years since, many other community groups have added their support for these legislative efforts. Annual attempts to pass an independent ombudsman bill began in 2013 with SB 5177, sponsored by SenatorsMike Carrell andSteve Conway.[55] In 2014, Senators Conway,Jeannie Darneille,Steve O'Ban,Jeanne Kohl-Welles, andAnnette Cleveland sponsored SB 6399.[56] In 2015, SenatorsJeannie Darneille,Rosemary McAuliffe,Jeanne Kohl-Welles,Steve O'Ban,Maralyn Chase,Bob Hasegawa,Karen Keiser,Kirk Pearson, Steve Conway, andDavid Frockt sponsored SB 5505, with RepresentativesLuis Moscoso,Roger Goodman,Eric Pettigrew,Sherry Appleton,Tina Orwall,Timm Ormsby, andLaurie Jinkins sponsoring companion bill HB 2005.[57][58]
In the 2016 legislative session, SenatorsMark Miloscia,Christine Rolfes,Kirk Pearson,Steve O'Ban, Steve Conway, andRosemary McAuliffe sponsored unsuccessful SB 6154, with RepresentativesLuis Moscoso,Eric Pettigrew,Sherry Appleton,Tina Orwall,David Sawyer,Cindy Ryu,Derek Stanford,Gerry Pollet,Teri Hickel,Steve Bergquist, andSharon Tomiko Santos sponsoring companion HB 2817.[59][60]
In the 2017-2018 legislative session an ombudsman bill, HB 1889, passed both chambers of the legislature.[61]
WADOC opposed these legislative efforts. In 2016, WADOC created its own internal ombudsman position. Carlos Lugo, who had previously worked on a special WADOC project concerning visitation access for Latino incarcerated people, was hired as the first WADOC ombudsman.[62]
The WADOC Intelligence and Investigations Unit asked theFBI to become involved in the investigation of employee contraband smuggling at WADOC's Monroe Correctional Complex smuggling in December 2015.[63] A correctional officer was arrested on September 29, 2016.[63] FBI agents determined the officer was accepting bribes of up to $1,000 to smuggle contraband into the prison.[63]
At Cedar Creek Corrections Center in 2003, the Washington State Department of Corrections andThe Evergreen State College founded the Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP).[64] Dan Pacholke was Cedar Creek Correctional Center's superintendent at the time, and started composting and water catchment programs to save money and create meaningful work for the men incarcerated at the minimum security facility.[64] Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, a member of the faculty at Evergreen, asked for incarcerated people to join her in a study to grow native mosses, and Cedar Creek welcomed her proposal.[64] From here, the partnership between Evergreen and WADOC strengthened and expanded. In the decade plus since, SPP has expanded to several other WADOC prisons. Incarcerated people raise endangered species and carry out impressive composting operations using recycled construction materials.[64]
The Washington Way is a WADOC initiative partnered with Amend at the University of California San Francisco focused on building a humane corrections environment and changing prison culture.[68] Washington Way takes principles fromNorwegian correctional styles. WADOC has made several visits to Norwegian prisons to see how they operate, and partners withOregon,California, among other US states to improve correctional practices in the US.
{{cite web}}:Cite uses generic title (help)This template pertains only to agencies that handle sentenced felons (with sentences over 1-2 years). In many states,pre-trial detainees, persons convicted of misdemeanors, and felons sentenced under state law to less than one year are held in county jails instead of state prisons. | |
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Above facilities are male-only unless noted by ♀(female) or ♂♀ (unisex) | |
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