WITNESS
Sergeant Gary Harkins is in his 25th year at the maximum security Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) in Salem, Oregon. During his career as a Corrections Officer, Correctional Corporal, and now Correctional Sergeant, he has worked every uniformed position at OSP, which houses four cell blocks, one dorm, a disciplinary segregation unit, an intensive management unit which houses death row, and a psychiatric security unit. Sgt. Harkins holds that OSP's direct supervision model, which encourages officers to have interpersonal contact with inmates, reduces the threat of violence and makes for a safer institution for both inmates and staff, who are armed with only a radio, a whistle, and a pair of handcuffs.
Sgt. Harkins has worked in the Oregon Department of Corrections Training Section revising staff curricula and currently sits as the only Correctional Line Staff representative on the 11-member Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training's Corrections Policy Committee. From 1998 to 2004, Sgt. Harkins served three terms as President of the Association of Oregon Corrections Employees, an independent union representing 750 corrections employees at OSP and three other facilities. For the past eight years, he has been the Recording Secretary for Corrections USA, a national organization representing approximately 43 corrections organizations and 120,000 correctional officers. He has a Bachelor of Science in Corrections Administration and a Minor in Business Administration.
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STATEMENT
The Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) is the state's only maximum security institution which houses inmates classified as either minimum, medium, close, or maximum custody. The institution consists of four cell blocks, one dorm, a disciplinary segregation unit, an intensive management unit which houses death row, and a psychiatric security unit. While OSP was originally designed for 1,380 inmates, it now houses approximately 2,050, down from a high of over 2,200 inmates a few years ago.… All uniformed staff are issued one pair of handcuffs, a radio, and a whistle.
All in all, I believe the Oregon system where we use direct supervision is a good one. It allows us to run safe and secure institutions by using interpersonal interactions between staff and inmates. I am pleased to say that in my 25 year career I only know of one incident of abuse involving three staff in the mid-1990s. Granted, one incident is one too many, but I think it speaks to how we treat inmates with respect, and direct supervision plays an important role in this. Unfortunately, new prisons are being built to minimize the number of staff, both in architectural design and by using technologies such as remote cameras and sensor systems. This dehumanizes the inmates and staff alike. I also believe that you need to take the effort of actually walking among the inmates and engaging them in conversation. I believe this helps in the rehabilitation of the inmate and better prepares them to reenter society. Unfortunately, with the drastic cutbacks in educational and vocational programs we are currently experiencing, this is becoming a harder task.
Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission
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Note: Some witnesses submitted documents in addition to the written statement they prepared for the hearing. In most cases, those documents are not available on the Commission's web site.
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