Pound Pup Legacy

Dwight Correctional Center, originally the Oakdale Reformatory for Women, was opened Nov. 24, 1930. The Level 1 facility is situated on approximately 100 acres and houses adult female offenders. Dwight serves a multifaceted population consisting of reception and classification, segregation, protective custody, condemned and mental health units as well as a state-of-the-art medical facility designed to provide care to pregnant and critically or terminally ill inmates.

Kankakee Minimum Security Unit (KMSU), a Level 7 facility, is a satellite facility of Dwight Correctional Center. It currently houses 100 offenders with an adult female capacity of 200 on 23 acres of land leased from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Offenders housed at Kankakee provide public service work in community-based programs.

Highlights

On Oct. 5, 2002, the Dwight Correctional Center and KMSU along with the Church Women and Church World Service United held its annual 5K CROPWALK. This year's CROPWALK raised $13,769.31. This event was held in honor of the late Rev. Phil Johnson, who served as chaplain at Dwight Correctional Center from November 1989 through February 2002. Rev. Johnson helped orchestrate the very first CROPWALK held at the facility in 1994.

Twenty-five percent of CROPWALK proceeds will benefit local hunger relief through Dwight Food Pantry, Catholic Charities in Kankakee County, Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation and the East St. Louis Catholic Urban Services. Church World Service will use the other 75 percent for hunger, disaster relief and development throughout the world.

On April 8, 2003, Jane Addams Hall hosted the first Mini GROW (Gaining Resources to Offer Women Offenders) Conference with presenters from as far as Texas. The conference was well attended by Dwight staff and IDOC staff from various facilities.

The mailroom also relocated from the basement of the administration building to the first floor. The Training Department relocated to a more centralized area of the institution as well. This affords staff easier accessibility for the areas to operate more efficiently.

The sentences of all four condemned unit offenders were commuted to life without parole. All condemned offenders were interviewed and tested for appropriate placement after the clemency decision.

The Dual Diagnosis Unit is a 26-bed unit designed to serve the needs of offenders who have both a mental illness and a significant drug problem. The program addresses the needs of this population through a specialized therapeutic community. The program was implemented in June 2003. The center looks forward to the continued placement of appropriate offenders into the program on an ongoing basis.

Living units C-9 and C-17 were renovated with plumbing, heating and electrical. The installation of air conditioning at Clinical Services was completed as well.

The Dwight Correctional Center honors hundreds of volunteers each year who provide services to Dwight Correctional Center and the minimum-security unit in Kankakee. Volunteers provide workshops and chapel services as well as donating personal hygiene items and Bibles. They provide messages of hope and encouragement to the offenders. This year, the volunteers for Dwight Correctional Center and KMSU have provided the institutions with more than 4,500 hours of services. The facilities could not do it alone.

A partnership was established with Support Dogs Inc., which provides dogs to the Helping Paws Program and places transition dogs to needy recipients. Helping Paws also began a program with the William W. Fox Developmental Center, in which residents interact with the service dogs. This is helpful in the socializing skills of the dogs. Helping Paws trained 19 service dogs.

The garment shop, which is a Correctional Industry program, produced 83,308 garments for total sales of $959,680.00. Items sewn are for male and female offenders statewide, such as blue and black pants, blue shirts, pajamas and dusters.

Day Camp replaced the weekend camp celebration program that had previously been established. This one-day experience for mother and child bonding serviced 104 mothers and 160 children. Aunt Mary's Storybook project was incorporated into the camp, giving the child an educational memento from the experience.

On July 20, 2002, a PBS filmed a story at Dwight on Aunt Mary's Story Book Project, which aired in August 2002. Aunt Mary's Story Book Project is available to offenders throughout the rest of the year through Leisure Time Services.

Reducing Recidivism

Lake Land College offers several vocational programs with the main goal of reducing recidivism by teaching job skills for the workplace. Computer technology and business management offer job skills that enable offenders to obtain entry-level jobs in data processing and the office environment. Students learn basic computer operation, data processing techniques and business fundamentals. A commercial cooking program teaches offenders skills to work in the restaurant or food service industry. Students obtain skills to cook, to work as a team and how to look for and keep a job in food service.

Two dog programs, grooming and service dog training, teach employable grooming techniques and training strategies that make it easier for offenders to obtain a job in the pet industry. Effective, relevant job skills help offenders provide for themselves upon release and help reduce recidivism.

The pilot project with Thresholds, funded solely through Thresholds, began in April 2003. The project is designed to take repeat offenders with chronic mental illness and provide them with assertive community management, such as provide housing, transportation to appointments and aid in finding employment. The main goal of the program is to reduce the recidivism of chronically mental ill offenders. The program has accepted approximately five offenders to date and four offenders are still successfully placed in the community and doing well.

The Gateway Foundation, "Answers to Addition," provide offenders with group sessions in anger management, shame, self-esteem, life skills, nutrition, hygiene and assertiveness. Offenders who successfully complete this program at Dwight Correctional Center and KMSU are offered and encouraged community placement upon their release. In FY 2003, 140 Dwight offenders and 170 KMSU offenders were referred to residential and outpatient treatment centers where they could continue in their treatment sessions.

Security Initiatives

The Reception and Classification (R&C) Unit enables offenders to enter one building where all R&C functions are completed without transporting the offenders to any other building. Upon completion of the intake process, offenders are also housed in the same building. This has decreased the need for security to transport non-cleared offenders through the facility as was previously done.

The Dietary Department at Kankakee has accommodated security's needs by starting breakfast at 7 a.m. instead of 6 a.m. This assists security in monitoring offender movement more efficiently.

The prison offers an intern program for students seeking advanced degrees. The first class of pre-doctoral interns completed their internship and the center is looking forward to another productive year with this year's interns. The R&C internship was designed to implement psychological and intellectual testing on offenders as they enter the correctional system. It is hoped that the test results will aid in placement and treatment decisions of offenders. The center has completed the first trial year of the program and looks forward to another productive year with the incoming class of interns.

Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Compliance

The Dietary Department at KMSU is cooking more from scratch instead of buying pre-made items. Due to a newly installed freezer, there is room to store more food items. Dietary is also using re-usable kitchen utensils in the serving lines. Previously, it was using meal kits, consisting of a disposable knife, fork, spoon and napkin.

The Dwight Dietary Department also began using washable trays and was able to significantly reduce its usage of Styrofoam trays and hinged trays.

Health Care has purchased new x-ray equipment that was interfaced with some of the existing equipment costing $28,000. Before the new equipment, a portable x-ray was being rented and used. The new x-ray equipment will be a cost savings to security and health care. The new equipment will eliminate offenders being sent to an outside hospital for x-rays.

Dwight Industry is governed by ICI Central Office Fiscal Procedures.

The Closet dressed out 730 women, which resulted in a savings of $48,060.

Staff continues to seek new ways to reduce spending while maintaining the level of services needed to professionally and securely maintain a Level l facility.

Indicator Reports

Offender grievances in FY 2003 totaled 1,275, which is a significant reduction from 2,599 in FY 2002.

Eighty-eight babies compared to 62 born the previous year reflected an increase of 1.4 percent.

In academic programs, 266 students received services in classes such as Adult Basic Education, GED and vocational education. Offenders earned 72 ABE certificates, 14 GED certificates and 89 college vocation certificates.

Cell extraction, while using the TACT team, showed a slight reduction, 32 in FY 2002 with 31 in FY 2003. Inmate-to-employee assaults showed a significant reduction. FY 2002 reflected 77 assaults with FY 2003 reflecting 49. Some possibilities for this significant reduction are the holding cells and the "food box" at the segregation units and the Mental Health Unit. The trained members of the Tactical Team and all staff are being more alert to any situations that may occur.

New Technology and Automated Enhancements

The Bureau of Identification received the Live Scan Unit for fingerprinting. Fingerprints are taken electronically and when all demographics Ñ such as height, weight, marks scars and tattoos Ñ are inputted, then all fingerprints are processed and distributed to required agencies. Computer data card imaging photographs have eliminated the developing of film in the dark room, which makes this process twice as fast as in the past.

Implementation of the Automated Reception and Classification System (ARCS) was initiated at Dwight's R&C Unit. After initial installation of this program, it had to be modified for the female offender intake process and information. Staff worked diligently with the creators of this program to enhance the intake process of the adult female population. Since the system's development, it has made the intake process of female offenders more efficient and provided a quick tracking process for all cases.

Lake Land College upgraded computer networks in both computer technology and business management by adding three new Dell computers to each of the networks. To help aid in the learning process of offenders, School District 428 has placed additional computers in each classroom. Jane Addams Hall received the Local Area Network (LAN), which enables School District 428 to communicate and receive information from across the state.

Conclusion

The Helping Paws Program is proud to be located at Dwight. The support of staff has been tremendous. Staff has demonstrated its trust in the program by allowing pets to be groomed, trained and cared for by the offenders enrolled in this program. By doing so, this is significant of how far the center has come in rehabilitating the perception of programs that involve offenders and staff. Three hundred and seventy dogs were groomed and 22 dogs received obedience training. The security and civilian staff has donated supplies and time to this program.

Forty employees with an accumulation of 550 years of experience were lost during this time frame, 80 percent of it was due to the Early Retirement Incentive. The center experienced considerable transition during this time frame. Dwight was fortunate to receive 40 staff from Sheridan Correctional Center. The experience that these employees brought with them has been a positive feature. Their presence has raised the morale of all of the staff.

The open door policy of department heads has benefited the communication between line and command staff.

During the turbulent times of our country, all staff has banded together to maintain a positive attitude. The center maintains this attitude to show support of fellow staff with family members in foreign lands defending our country.