WITNESS
Anthony M. Delgado began his career with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in 1992 as a Correction Officer. He reached Major in 2001 after moving through the custody ranks at four different state correctional facilities. In 2002, he was assigned to his current position of Security Threat Group Investigation Coordinator for the department. Mr. Delgado supervises the department's security threat group program and has worked toward developing two programs at each end of the spectrum: enforcement and programming. He also provides instruction about threat groups for the department and for a college law enforcement program.
Mr. Delgado holds a B.A. in Criminal Justice and an M.B.A. with emphasis on Public Administration from the University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio. He is a Certified Correctional Manager-Security Threat Group through the American Correctional Association and was the first person to pass this exam for the STG certification program. He also is an adjunct faculty in the Public Administration program at the University of Rio Grande.
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STATEMENT
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction…has actively tracked security threat groups (STGs) for the past 15 years. Our current incarcerated STG population is 6,454, which represents 14 percent of the total inmate population. High security male prisons average between 18 to 23 percent of identified STG members. Maximum-security male prisons in Ohio average between 20 to 34 percent. Our three female prisons average less than one percent STG population. In the past two years our correctional facilities released 5,600 STG offenders from prisons to the community.
Previously the STG management strategy was mainly reactive and focused on local investigations and administrative moves designed to keep inmates from grouping together. In 2002, we searched for more proactive means to manage our STG offenders. …External review of documents and policies from several other agencies indicated that many other programs were reactive and punitive in nature with segregation being a mandatory element of the program. …
During design of our COPE (Creating Opportunities for Positive Endeavors) program and research of our inmate population, we found that inmate placement in segregation is costly, takes longer to instill change and is negative. Active gang members expect to be placed in segregation as a part of doing business, as a gang member on the "street" expects to go to prison; in the process they build their resume. Most of all it is reactive and difficult to determine if change instilled into an offender was the result of programming or a lengthy placement in segregation.
…With inmate programming we want to provide education showing the negative effects of gang membership, strengthen family bonds and provide continued support through incarceration and into the community.
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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