California Department of Corrections

Using the TOC Thinking Processes in the California Department of Corrections

All California State Prisons are managed by the California Department of Corrections. In the prison itself the Warden is the senior staff person in charge. The average prison staff consists of about 3500 people, with the number of prisoners being considerably larger than the number of staff members.

In 1996 the number of state prisons in California was 33. That number grew to 36 in 1997. The number of prisons in the system is expected to rise to 42 by the year 2001, and continue to grow beyond that as the anticipated prison population is projected to double from the 1996 figures by the year 2007.

In 1996 the California prison system was in a state of turmoil:

• Prisons were receiving a lot of negative publicity - both in California and nationally
• The federal government was overseeing prison systems to ensure compliance
• A change in the mission of prisons was occurring - added to the original mission of "incarcerate" was that of "rehabilitate"
• As a result of Coleman vs. California, it was recognized that prisoners were entitled to basic human rights (in this case, health services)
• Judges were beginning to hand down longer sentences.

That year, the warden of one of the California State Prisons, the deputy warden, the associate warden, the senior medical officer, and the business manager took AGI's Management Skills Workshop (MSW).

As is part of the program, they were asked to pick an ambitious target they wanted to achieve. The team chose the Enhanced Outpatient Program (EOP). The EOP is a 150-bed mental health facility which the California State Prisons were to implement, and was the number one priority of the warden.

At the time, six other state prisons in California had been unsuccessful in opening EOP, the "benchmark" prison had failed twice in a two year period (achieving only 17% compliance), and this particular prison was already 18 months into the EOP project which was scheduled to take 12 months.

After completing the MSW - and after 18 months of gridlock working on the EOP - the warden's team went back to square one. Using the Thinking Processes (TP) tools learned in the MSW they identified all of the obstacles (more than 60) to opening the EOP, then identified 54 intermediate objectives, and built the Prerequisite Tree (PrT)

Following are the results achieved by this team after taking the one-week MSW:

• Completed MSW on November 27, 1996
• Implemented the plan created in the MSW on January 3, 1997
• Opened the EOP on March 31, 1997 at 85-90% compliance.

Today (May 1998), this prison's EOP has achieved:

• 100% compliance
• 100% occupancy, and
• Is the model EOP in the California State Prison system.

The next project the prison decided to tackle using the TP skills learned in the MSW was the California "Computers for Schools Program." This program involves sending old, used and broken computers to the prisons for refurbishment by the prisoners and then sending the computers to the school systems. This program potentially provides (increased) computer access to millions of children, while serving as part of the prisoner rehabilitation program.

The prison was experiencing problems managing this program. It was overwhelmed by all of the computers and components, which led to warehousing the damaged/old computers. They were also warehousing the finished goods (refurbished computers) and the process was almost at gridlock.

When they tried to identify the constraint, the answer was "it depends." They began identifying their problems:

• Could not meet their delivery schedules
• Convinced they were doing a poor job managing production
• Inadequate storage for incoming computers
• Inadequate storage for refurbished computers
• Had so much WIP that production was continually shutting down.

They built their Current Reality Tree (CRT) and identified about 50 Undesirable Effects (UDEs), which they were able to reduce to ten. After reviewing their CRT the prison team discovered their UDEs were not a result of what they were doing, but a result of the policies set higher up.

When these policies which were causing the gridlock were addressed and broken, the following occurred:

• Today this prison is the hub for computer refurbishment (for 13 prisons serving southern California)
• The prison is meeting its delivery schedule
• The prison is exceeding the rehabilitative vocational goals of providing computers for children and rehabilitating and training prisoners (providing them with skills they can use once released) ­ a great win-win!
• The prison's achievement was recently recognized by California's Director of the Department of Corrections.

Due to the above successes, TOC is being successfully implemented in another area of operations in the California State Prison system. Reception Centers are the clearinghouse for inmates entering the state prison system. At the Reception Centers, prisoners are put through extensive evaluations (medical, special needs, etc). Using the Prerequisite Tree (PrT) and the Transition Tree (TrT), to date approximately 20 days has been shaved off the evaluation period per prisoner.

What's Next

The warden from another prison will be sending its senior staff members through the MSW. This particular prison is the Center for Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation in the California State Prison system. This warden is concentrating on the early treatment and rehabilitation of prisoners.

Also, the Director of the Department of Corrections has approved a Strategic Planning Team. Members will include the Assistant Director, Wardens, representatives from Legislative Affairs, persons with Medical, Policy, and Rehabilitation expertise, and Inmate representatives. In all there will be 12 to 15 people on the team. The Strategic Planning Team will go through a dedicated Jonah Program^® in the summer of 1998 and will focus on "issues that will cause fundamental change to the California Department of Corrections."

This success story was presented at the Jonah^SM Upgrade Workshop in May 1998 by Danny Walsh, Certified Associate of the Avraham Y. Goldratt Institute. The presentation is available on video (#JUK-16).