WITNESS
Theodis Beck was appointed Secretary for the North Carolina Department of Correction on April 19, 1999 by Governor James B. Hunt, Jr., and was re-appointed on January 10, 2001 by Governor Michael F. Easley. Secretary Beck oversees over 18,000 employees, an annual operating budget of nearly $900 million, an inmate population of more than 34,000 and 118,000 probationers and parolees.
Secretary Beck started his career as a probation and parole officer in Asheville in 1975. In 1983, he was selected as one of the state's original eight intensive probation and parole officers and supervised a high risk caseload for five and a half years. He has also served as director of the Division of Adult Probation and Parole, now referred to as the Division of Community Corrections, and deputy secretary with oversight of the Division of Prisons and the Division of Community Corrections.
Secretary Beck holds an associate's degree in business administration and a bachelor's degree in sociology from North Carolina Central University. He is a graduate of the North Carolina Public Manager's Program and serves on the Governor's Crime Commission, the State Advisory Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the State Drug Court Advisory Board. Prior to his state service, he served two years active duty in the U.S. Army, and retired from the U.S. Army Reserve as a first sergeant in August 1997 with over 24 years of military service.
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STATEMENT
In the early days of corrections, employees were called guards. Now, if you call a correctional officer a guard, you are likely to offend him or her. That's because today's officers do more than just "guard" offenders. Indeed, it is a new day.
…Correctional officers now are required to communicate effectively with inmates who do not speak English as the primary language, if at all. They must understand and respect religious rites and practices that are unfamiliar to them. They must recognize the different connotations that body language, gestures and actions have in cultures different from their own.
These cultural differences go beyond race, ethnicity or religion. Many new prisons are built in rural areas, while the inmates tend to be from large urban areas. In addition, the prevalence of gangs on the outside translates to a growing gang problem behind prison walls. The cultural differences between officers and inmates in some circumstances can be as great as the Grand Canyon and officers must become more streetwise as a matter of survival.
…The most important thing a prison can do, however, is to teach the correctional officer how to relate to the various segments of today's inmate population. Correctional officers today must be amateur sociologists with at least a rudimentary knowledge of various cultures in order to survive in the correctional setting. As a result, the officer's training and education includes everything from self defense to crisis management. Most important, however, the ranks of the correctional officer must become even more diversified in order to meet the needs of the changing inmate population.
Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission
Download the complete written statement
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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