Community Interaction
DOC encourages positive interaction with the community as we strive to promote public safety, community protection, and public understanding.
Community Interaction
The Department supervises several programs that provide offenders the chance to give back to their communities, secure employment and get treatment for dependency issues.
- Offender Crews – Work includes roadside litter cleanup, wildlife habitat restoration, forest-fire suppression, graffiti removal and landscaping.
- Work Release – Expanding the DOC work release program for public safety.
Correctional Industries
Thousands of offenders gain work experience and training as they produce high quality, competitively priced products, which translates into enormous benefits for taxpayers, the offenders who work and learn in Correctional Industries, and for its customers.
Alternative Sentencing
The Washington Legislature in 2010 approved SSB 6639, a bill supported by the Department of Corrections and the Department of Social and Health Services that created two alternatives to prison confinement for some nonviolent offenders who have minor children. This bill created a judicial sentencing alternative called the Family and Offender Sentencing Alternative or FOSA. It also created a new program of partial confinement for use by the Department that is referred to as the Community Parenting Alternative or CPA.
Research shows children of incarcerated parents are significantly more likely to end up in the criminal justice system themselves. The goal of this program is to help stop that cycle of criminal activity.
FOSA may be used for offenders who commit an offense on or after June 10, 2010. A
FOSA Brochure has more information on the sentencing alternative