WITNESS
Arthur Wallenstein currently serves as Director of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Department of Correction and Rehabilitation. All three of the county's correctional facilities are accredited by the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. The agency retains a strong focus on reentry and community corrections and works strongly on building a responsive behavioral health program in linkage with community partners to diminish the incarceration of the mentally ill.
Mr. Wallenstein has over 30 years of experience in the corrections field and has previously served as Director of the King County (Washington) Department of Adult Detention and as Director/Warden of the Bucks County (Pennsylvania) Department of Corrections. In 2004, he was the first correctional administrator to win the coveted Bernard Harrison Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care for his outstanding commitment to improving health care in corrections. Former Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Mr. Wallenstein as a member of the National Institute of Corrections Advisory Board (l994 to 2004), and former Governor Richard Thornburgh appointed him as the County Corrections member of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (l979 to l988).
Mr. Wallenstein has served as an Adjunct Faculty Member at Temple University, St. Joseph's University, the University of Washington, and currently Montgomery College (Maryland). He has a special interest in international relations and has co-authored a book on the United Nations and international organizations. His education includes a B.S. from Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service and a M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
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STATEMENT
Jails are the site of most correctional business, and health care is a critical element in the admission and booking of over 10 million prisoners annually. …Providing specialized health care services for over 10 million human beings is an enormous undertaking and drives many public policy considerations that do impact the safety of our local correctional facilities, the staff who work in this environment, and the communities that are served by these institutions.
…there is likely no single area of correctional practice more accepted across liberal and conservative advocacy and evaluation than health care delivery. Standards now exist that provide guidance to any correctional system in this country regarding the proper nature of correctional health care.… It would be a grave error to assume or to portray this health care system as deficient, inappropriate, abusive, or beyond the pale of constitutional practice. Certainly there are deficient health care operations in selected jurisdictions, but the quality of correctional health has improved dramatically, and this is part of the testimony that must be presented and reviewed by this Commission. It is not singularly a story of abuse but rather a much broader story of change, constitutional growth and development, expanding service delivery as a function of vast changes in the nature of health care needs brought to the jail system, and increased opportunity to dramatically improve public health services for an enormous "at risk" population.
Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission
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Note: Some witnesses submitted documents in addition to the written statement they prepared for the hearing. In most cases, those documents are not available on the Commission's web site.
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