Shelton CCO Begins Grassroots Effort to Create Efficiency and Cut Costs 

By Joseph L. Mitchell, DOC Communications Office

Community Corrections Officer 2 Damon Brown works in the Shelton Field Office
Community Corrections Officer 2 Damon Brown works
at the Shelton Field Office.

When Damon Brown recognized that a sex offender in his caseload was someone he encountered three years earlier at the Green Hill School in Chehalis, he picked up the phone and called the Department of Social and Health Services Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration (JRA). JRA is responsible for the administration of the state’s juvenile corrections system.

Brown worked in the intensive management unit at Green Hill before taking a community corrections officer job at the DOC Shelton Field Office.  Green Hill is a medium-, maximum-security facility that provides older, male juvenile offenders with academic education and prevocational training. The facility also provides specialized chemical dependency and sex offender treatment and services for youth with mental health issues.

“There was an incident involving this offender when he was transferred to my unit at the school,” Brown explains. “I knew this guy had a sex offense conviction as a juvenile and I wanted to collaborate with JRA on his supervision if they still had an open case with him.”

After confirming that the offender was under JRA jurisdiction, Officer Brown contacted Jael LaSalle, the sex offender treatment provider for the JRA region that covers Clark, Cowlitz, Gray Harbor, Klickitat, Lewis, Mason, Pacific, Skamania, Thurston, and Wahkiakum counties. 

“We maintain jurisdiction of sex offenders on parole with JRA until they are 21,” said LaSalle. “There are a number of cases where juveniles fall under dual supervision that we work in conjunction with DOC.”

Jael LaSalle is a sex offender treatment coordinator for the Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration
Jael LaSalle coordinates sex offender treatment
for the Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration.

LaSalle says that ten of the 75 sex offenders currently on parole with JRA in her region are under dual supervision with DOC, and that better coordination between the two agencies on these cases can improve services and cut costs.  

During the course of their conversation, Brown and LaSalle discovered that they both had a need to polygraph the same offender at various times over the course of a year.

“To satisfy the requirements of both DOC and JRA, this offender would need seven different polygraphs administered over the course of the year, at a cost of $200 per test,” said Brown. “Since our information needs were very similar, it just made sense for us to share our polygraphs results with each other and eliminate the need for so many separate tests.”

Brown says this is a simple idea that he hopes can be expanded to benefit several criminal justice stakeholder groups.

“DOC needs quarterly polygraphs on sex offenders - DOC and JRA therapists need the testing done as well,” he explains. “There are mental health cases referred for polygraphs by the court. There may be special cases that need a polygraph – dangerously mentally ill offenders, domestic violence cases and drug offender alternative sentencing cases. We could structure polygraph questions so that the answers would be of interest to our criminal justice partners and share the results with them. Polygraph reports could be provided to DOC, DSHS, CPS, SSA – we shouldn’t have to require everyone to pay for the cost of the report. There shouldn’t be any burden we can’t share.”

“This is an excellent suggestion and I commend Damon and Jael for taking the initiative and working together to share resources and create efficiencies,” says DOC Deputy Secretary Cheryl Strange.

Strange says that Governor Gregoire has asked the heads of all cabinet level agencies to look at what their agencies are doing and find commonalities in the clients they serve and the services they provide.

“I see many agencies discussing ways to share common resources and streamline efficiencies,” she says. “For example, we recently met with DSHS, Labor and Industries and the Department of Commerce to discuss collaboration regarding state crime victims.  In addition, we are meeting regularly with DSHS to identify other efficiencies that make good business sense and help our shared responsibilities such as food service, chemical dependency and mental health treatment, as well as other health care and offender re-entry services.  It is an exciting time to be in state government and see the ideas that staff come up to save money and improve services.  DOC staff are the best in the business.”

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