Women’S Work-Release Program Gets New Director Alice Watts Replaces Darlene Compton, Who Helped Establish The Eleanor Chase Center

Another Spokane woman has been named director of the state work-release program for women.

Today, Alice Watts takes over the Eleanor Chase House and two other Department of Corrections programs housed there.

Watts replaces Darlene Compton, who retired Friday after 30 years with the department.

“It’s like women standing on women’s shoulders,” Watts said. “I’m going to continue what she’s built.”

The work-release center at 427 W. Seventh houses up to 55 female offenders serving the last six months of their state prison sentence or the last year of a county jail sentence.

Watts will also supervise the Day Reporting Center, where offenders living in the community are more closely monitored. Finally, she will oversee offender work crews that are completing community service by cleaning highways and working for such nonprofit agencies as Habitat for Humanity and the Spokane Food Bank.

Compton, one of the pioneering women in the Department of Corrections, helped establish and has directed the Eleanor Chase center since it opened in 1993. Last year it became the first site in the state with a residential parenting program. Four babies and toddlers have moved into the facility under the program. The goal is to allow new mothers to bond with their children and keep them out of foster care while the mothers are incarcerated.

Compton is leaving her job, but not her work. She plans to volunteer for the Center for Justice, a private, nonprofit law firm downtown.

Watts was born and raised in Spokane and graduated from Marycliff High School. She attended University College, Galway, in Galway, Ireland, and Eastern Washington University, where she earned a degree in history.

When her second son was in second grade 15 years ago, she started with the department as a part-time clerk typist and worked her way up to become a community corrections officer. She has supervised sex offenders, worked at Pine Lodge Pre-release in Medical Lake and was the lone state corrections officer in Lincoln County.

Most recently, she was a regional program manager specialist and correctional manager. Watts is the younger sister of Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor.