Locke Appoints New Prisons Director Joseph Lehman Has Worked In Washington, Pennsylvania, Maine Corrections Systems
Gov. Gary Locke on Wednesday appointed Joseph D. Lehman, a 28-year veteran of the corrections industry, to head Washington’s prison agency.
Lehman, 53, who previously worked in Washington’s corrections system for 21 years as a parole officer and eventually as a deputy secretary, has spent the past seven years running the prison systems in Maine and Pennsylvania.
He succeeds Chase Riveland, who was appointed secretary of the Corrections Department in 1986 by then-Gov. Booth Gardner. Riveland retired last month when Locke took office.
Locke, a former prosecutor, said Lehman was a logical choice because of his experience overseeing Pennsylvania’s largest expansion of prison space in state history, his budget-cutting experience in Maine and his background in Washington.
Lehman, 53, will start March 10 at an annual salary of $93,659.
His predecessor, Riveland, drew criticism from Republican lawmakers who contended he was not harsh enough on inmates. Others credited Riveland for running a department that has escaped serious prison disturbances seen in other states in recent years.
Lehman said he hopes lawmakers will recognize that get-tough proposals should be based on research that shows what kind of criminals should be imprisoned and what kind could be penalized in other ways.
Lehman is taking over one of the fastest-growing agencies in Washington state.
The Corrections Department’s operating budget of $765 million in the 1995-97 budget period could grow to as much as $844 million in the 1997-99 biennium that begins July 1. The agency employs 6,300 people.
Washington’s prison system houses 12,825 inmates in 12 institutions, and the population is growing by nearly 500 inmates a year. The agency supervises another 77,000 criminals in community corrections programs.
Lehman, a graduate of St. Martin’s College in Lacey and Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, spent 21 years as a probation and parole officer and deputy secretary in Washington’s prison system.
He left in 1990 to take over Pennsylvania’s prison system during a time in which capacity was expanded by 10,000, to a total of 28,000 inmates. Lehman left the post in 1995 after the election of Republican Gov. Tom Ridge.
After arriving in Maine, he helped find millions of dollars in savings in Maine’s 1,663-inmate prison system as part of a government-wide effort to economize.
However, not long after the Maine Legislature cut the prison system’s budget at his request, Lehman was criticized by some lawmakers for changing his mind and asking for more money and additional staff. He said a small but significant rise in the inmate population prompted him to seek the extra money.