Leadership Profile

New PREA Administrator Advocates for Humane Treatment of Offenders

By Joseph L. Mitchell, DOC Communications Office

Lynne DeLano
Lynne Delano, PREA Administrator

In April 2006 Lynne DeLano left her job as Assistant Deputy Secretary in the Prisons Division, a position she held since November 1999, to fulfill her life long dream of working in the Peace Corps. She and her husband served in Romania.  She had just returned home to Olympia when Secretary Vail called and asked her to come back to DOC and take on the job of administering the agency’s Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) program.

“I worked with PREA before I left DOC and have a lot of interest in that area,” said DeLano. “I have been a long-time advocate of humane treatment for offenders, to treat others as I want to be treated. The fact that some offenders are sexually assaulted by other offenders and staff while serving sentences under our jurisdiction is unacceptable.”

DeLano leads the PREA special investigations team, a unit which she helped to create in 2005. She wrote the agency’s PREA grant application in 2004 and was successful in obtaining $2 million in federal and state matching funds to start the program at DOC.  The grant allowed collaboration with the Juvenile Rehabilitation Agency at DSHS and with the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs.  A portion of the grant was also used to train county jail personnel about PREA and local prosecutors about prosecuting PREA-related offenses.

Before DeLano began her first stint at DOC in 1999, she spent three years in Turkey and Italy, during which time she taught criminal justice classes for the University of Maryland. Prior to that, she was Vice President for Community Corrections at Pioneer Human Services in Seattle. 

DeLano worked for the South Dakota Department of Corrections from 1976 to 1995 and served as Secretary from 1989 to 1995. During her tenure in South Dakota, she also served as superintendent of the Women’s Correctional Facility and was subsequently appointed as superintendent of the Springfield Correctional Facility - now the Mike Durfee State Prison. That facility was formerly a vocational-technical college that was closed by the South Dakota state legislature in 1984 and converted into a prison. 

“Being a superintendent is like being governor of your own little state,” said DeLano.  “It was one of my most satisfying jobs.”

DeLano says she had to battle subtle and not so subtle sexism in her career and credits much of her success to having strong women as role models while she grew up in the system. Some of her early mentors were Superintendents Susan Hunter in Iowa, Judy Uphoff in Wyoming and Jackie Fleming in Minnesota. DeLano says they taught her to talk with peers and colleagues when she needed help, to hang in there and persevere.

“Overall I have been extremely lucky, but I also worked very hard and sometimes it just seemed like I was in the right place at the right time,” said DeLano. “I don’t think I could work at a regular company or desk job. Corrections work is so varied with many challenges and opportunities. I find my work extremely rewarding, always interesting and I’ve met and befriended some great people along the way.”

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