WCDC Receives Tier 1 Certification from TCI Board of Control

JONESBOROUGH – For the first time in the history of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, its Detention Center is now certified as a Tier 1 facility.  On June 7, the Tennessee Corrections Institute’s (TCI) Board of Control certified the Washington County Detention Center (WCDC) as meeting the requirements for a Tier 1 facility.

“When the citizens of Washington County elected me, one of my main goals was for the Detention Center to be a Tier 1 facility,” said Sheriff Keith Sexton. “It took a great deal of work to get us there. The professionalism of the staff we now have in place put us in this elite corrections category.”

Out of the 125 detention centers administered by county and municipal governments, only 12 are certified as Tier 1. WCDC became the 11th during this week’s TCI meeting.

The importance of achieving Tier 1 is two-fold. While it will increase the reimbursement rate for housing state inmates by $3 day, and potentially bringing in around $153,000 more a year for Washington County, the impact to the community is greater.

“This certification shows that we are improving access to evidence-based inmate programs to help ensure they can re-enter society and not return to our facility,” Sexton said. “We’re putting our focus on not just detaining individuals, but on getting to the reason why they committed a crime in the first place. Addiction and mental illness go hand-in-hand within the detention center population.”

Tier 1 includes 25 standards a facility must meet, comprised of five mandatory standards and 20 optional standards. 

Mandatory standards are: 

•    One evidence-based program for inmates focusing on life skills or behavioral health;

•    One program focusing on life skills or education;

•    Two years of continuous TCI certification preceding the application;

•    Leadership development and succession planning that includes a comprehensive training plan with 40 hours of training for newly hired correctional employees; and

•    A zero tolerance policy of sexual abuse and sexual harassment with a plan for preventing, detecting and responding to sexual abuse and sexual harassment.

The remaining 20 standards include fundamental tasks such as the establishment of a County Corrections Partnership Committee, tracking data on inmate programs, ensuring proper space for evidence-based programming, classification of inmates, staffing, medical care, sentencing management, mental illness and substance abuse screening, and general improved oversight of the facilities.

“We aren’t stopping with Tier 1, we’re moving right into putting into action the standards required for Tier 2,” Sheriff Sexton said. “Our end game with this is to give inmates all the tools they need to not make the return trip to the Detention Center.”