Jail memo prepares officers for audit
Warden Don Stewart says the eight-page question-and-answer document is to educate his staff ahead of next month's American Correctional Association audit.
By JONATHAN ABEL
Published September 25, 2006
BROOKSVILLE - When the American Correctional Association audits the Hernando County Jail next month, the corrections officers will be ready.
Jail administrators recently passed out an eight-page memo with 85 sample questions and answers that might come up during the audit.
Q: How frequently do you see a Warden, Assistant Warden, or Chief?
A: Our management staff make daily rounds and inspections.
Q: When did you last participate in a Fire Drill?
A: Provide an approximate date that you last participated in a drill.
Q: Where are your Post Orders? When did you review them last? Did you sign them? May I see them?
A: My Post Order is kept at ____________. I review them every day. I sign them daily. Here they are.
Jail warden Don Stewart said the list of questions and answers is a standard tool for such evaluations.
"If you don't prepare people to know what to expect in the context of a major accreditation audit, you're not doing your job," he said Friday. "You'll never find anyone that would imply that in any fashion they were told not to tell the truth."
The questions and answers run the range from How many counts do you perform per shift? to How often does a segregation inmate get to shower? and Are body cavity searches conducted?
There are also intricate questions and responses about how guards can get keys from supervisors and how guards are involved in jail health care decisions.
Most of the sample answers also refer guards to citations from the employee handbook.
Stewart said that providing questions and answers was part of educating a young staff on what would be expected of them.
"It's not like they're going to sit down and take a written exam," he said. "If you're going to try to put this in the context of an examination in school, they're not anywhere near the same things."
The Citrus County Detention Facility, which like Hernando is run by Corrections Corporation of America, distributed a similar memo before its audit in April.
"It's pretty common, and I've done it in most facilities that I've ever been in," said Chris Howard, assistant warden at the Citrus jail. "It's an excellent opportunity just to see how your staff are doing."
But other publicly run jails in the region don't prepare for the audit this way.
"We don't give out any type of written questions and answers," said Kevin Doll, spokesman for the Pasco Sheriff's Office.
"We've never that I know of prepared a list of questions that auditors may ask," said Jim Gross, special projects manager for the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office. Though he said the jail does conduct a mock audit internally every year.
And at the Pinellas Sheriff's Office, no questions are distributed, but there is a slide show "basically going through the purpose of the audit, who will be coming, et cetera," said spokesman Mac McMullen. He added that there is a reminder for detention deputies to "go through policy and procedure books."
Jails are audited by the American Correctional Association, an industry group, every three years to ensure their compliance with nationally recognized standards.
At a recent lunch with community leaders, Stewart promised that the three-day audit would take a "very thorough" look at the facility and would be a good measure of how well the jail was doing.
"I'm not doing anything else that people don't do and that's not expected," he said. "Educating my staff is part of what I'm supposed to do."
Jonathan Abel can be reached at jabel@sptimes.com or 352 754-6114.