New Washington State Department Of Correction Secretary Considers His Work To Be A Ministry

By David BashThe Seattle Medium Last Thursday, members of the African American community held a reception to welcome the new Secretary of the Washington state Department of Corrections (DOC), Harold W. Clarke to Seattle. Clarke, who is Black, is formerly the Director of the Department of Corrections Services through three Nebraska state governorships for the past fifteen years and has been on the job here in Seattle since Feb. 28th. The Secretary of the Department of Corrections is a cabinet-level position appointed by the Governor to administer state adult correction facilities, community supervision programs and correctional industries impacting the DOC’s $1.4 billion proposed two year spending plan. Currently, the DOC employs over 8,200 men and women to administer, supervise offenders in the community, and manage more than 16,600 offenders housed in 15 institutions and 15 work release facilities. DOC currently rents 570 beds from other jurisdictions. As of June 2004, there were over 33,600 active supervised offenders in the community. The reception provided a true opportunity to talk about some of the realities of prisons as they pertain to African Americans, and a chance to form a partnership to help resolve some of the issues moving forward. “Prisons are jobs for White folks, housing for Blacks,” said Seattle city councilman Richard McIver, as he recounted the feelings that many African Americans have towards the U.S. penal system. King County Councilman Larry Gossett stated that the Seattle community is very involved with prisoners and that he cared particularly about the racial disproportionality of the state’s incarceration rate and that the community wanted to “be informed and have direct access” to prison policy makers. “We need to know what your values and commitments are because we have too many of our people in your system. You can be an advocate that the system does the right thing,” said Urban League president James Kelly. Clark set the tone, as he assured everyone in attendance that he was sensitive to the realities and perceptions that exist in the community. “On any given day anyone of us or our loved ones could be locked up,” said Clarke. “In corrections we are in the business of crime and punishment. Corrections is about people. We need to forge a relationship between the right people, the right reasons, and the right amount of time to lock people up,” he added. Clarke, who is the fourth child of nine children and whose first language is Spanish, is married to a lawyer, has two children, his father and two brothers are ministers, and he considers his corrections work to be a “ministry.” As part of his ministry, Clarke hopes to take negative statistics and images and transform them into success stories for reform. Citing that 69 percent of prisoners read bellow 8th grade level, around 20 percent have treatable mental illnesses, and that 80 percent violated drug laws or drug activity,” he said that “incarceration goes just so far. Clark said, “The best protection we can do for the community is to return [better] people.” State Rep. Eric Pettigrew (D-37) said that he was going to work closely with the new secretary to get prisoners educated while in the prison system and better prepared to re-enter the community. “Punishment is part of the system but these men and women are coming back into our communities,” said Pettigrew. Pettigrew said that legislation he helped pass lifted the restrictions the federal government had against drug convictions getting food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and that he got $1million dollars for one-time stipends for kinship care-givers of incarcerated parent’s children. “I’m hoping he’s kinda on the same line,” added Pettigrew. Clarke is a member of a number of professional associations, board member of the Girl Scouts, Council on Alcoholism and Drugs, Awardee of the Martin Luther King Award for Community Service, Executive of the Year for Substance Abuse association and a writer of a number of magazine articles on leadership and management and the Guide Book for Black American Perspective for college students. The DOC Secretary serves on the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, the Sentencing Guidelines Commission, and the Correctional Industries Board, and is co-chair of the Washington State Law and Justice Advisory Council. And the Secretary’s Office also manages, develops, and coordinates the DOC’s legislative, constituent and Federal liaison program including the development and review of all legislative proposals and the review of other agencies’ legislative requests. Also part of the Secretary’s Office is the Community Protection Unit & Victim Witness program that provides notification to victims and witness of violent sex, serious drug, and felony harassment crimes upon the release of the offender to the community. The Victim Witness Program’s main objective is to attempt to alleviate the high level of emotional stress suffered by victims and witnesses and to alert them of the offender’s release back into the community. In addition to notification, the program provides crisis intervention, referrals to resources for victims, and educates victim groups on the role of the Department of Corrections within the criminal justice system. “We know you’re not the messiah but you can help find ways to keep our people out of the system,” said event co-sponsor Nate Miles.