Warden Crawford brings 32 years of experience in criminal justice

Tuesday, May 23, 2000 | 11:39 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- For the first time, a woman is going to head the state prison system, a job that had traditionally been held by men.

Jackie Crawford, warden at the state correctional center at Lovelock for the last four years, believes she's up to the task. And she says she welcomes public scrutiny of the system that confines more than 8,000 inmates in seven prisons, conservation camps and restitution centers.

Crawford was named director of the Nevada Prisons today by Gov. Kenny Guinn, who praised her work at Lovelock.

She has had a variety of experience in her 32-year career in criminal justice and has focused on such things as literacy programs for inmates and helping crime victims.

In the early 1980s she was hired by the city of Las Vegas to develop a detention system. A renovated Air Force barracks was converted into a municipal jail at Stewart and Mojave roads. Within eight months Las Vegas had the first city jail in the nation to receive accreditation from the National Commission on Accreditation for Corrections.

A suit had been filed against Clark County, alleging overcrowding at the county jail that forced the city to build the new detention center to hold adult misdemeanor offenders. The court decree against the county was lifted after the city program started to work. Crawford was roundly praised for her work.

In 1996 she helped the prison at Lovelock obtain only one of two federal grants awarded to hold a conference for the victims of crime.

The Lovelock prison has won 35 individual and institution state literacy awards in the past two years for achievement, leadership and innovation in literacy training. There has not been a major incident at the prison in the past four years.

Crawford doesn't foresee any immediate personnel changes and wants to meet the staff. But she's already working on a new management system.

The system, she said will provide offenders with choices that will improve their opportunities for being successful once they are released.

The military-structured program includes orientation sessions of what is expected of new inmates and a 40-hour class on victim awareness and how the crimes they commit affect victims. "Work, education, discipline, respect and accountability will be the driving theme for all offenders," she said.

Inmates who want to enter the program will be required to cut their hair and beards. "Personal hygiene, self-motivation and esteem will be emphasized. Inmates who volunteer for the structured living program ... will have accelerated privileges to include prison industries and work opportunities for pay."

The new direction starts by "ensuring that staff is appropriately selected and trained, their work environment safe and they are afforded a career ladder and a competitive wage," she said in her strategy for improving the prison system. State correctional officers are below the wage scales of similar positions in Las Vegas and Reno.

At Lovelock, she said, it was difficult to hire officers because of the prison's remote location. She started a system of 12-hour shifts so officers would have three days off one week and four days off the next. That move dramatically reduced the overtime required when there is a shortage of guards.

Officers of the Nevada Corrections Association, who are sometimes critical of prison administration, toured the Lovelock prison last month and said they found high morale in the staff and "well-developed, and well-run programs for the inmates."

The association, which is the union that represents the correctional officers, said, "We were impressed by the cleanliness of the Lovelock Correctional Center, and the very obvious and understated control that staff has over the inmates."

Before becoming warden at Lovelock, Crawford was warden of the rural camps in Nevada. During her career, she has served 18 years as a warden over male, female and juvenile prisons. She spent four years as executive director of the Arizona Board of Pardons and Parole; four years as corrections administrator for Las Vegas; and five years as court administrator for the superior court of Maricopa County, Ariz.

She and her husband, Boyd Marsing, currently a Pershing County School District employee, met 22 years ago when he was warden at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. He later became warden at the Southern Desert Correctional Center in Southern Nevada while she was with the city of Las Vegas.