2001-06-08

Former state Department of Corrections Director James Saffle is now the president of Avalon Correctional Services, The Oklahoman has learned. Avalon is an Oklahoma City-based private corrections company that has operations in Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado.

Saffle, 49, who was touring Avalon's two Colorado sites Thursday, said he realized his retirement would be short-lived. "I'm too young to lay down and quit doing work," he said. "I'm not the type of person to sit down and not do anything."

Don Smith, Avalon's chief executive officer, said Saffle will be a good fit for the company. "We're very excited about having him," Smith said. Saffle said he felt he could do more good with the type of people housed in Avalon's facilities. The company concentrates on halfway houses and other community sentencing programs. Most of its offenders are nonviolent.

"You don't have the tendency for violent activities," Saffle said. "I've been there, and I've done that." Smith contacted Saffle in February after learning of his pending retirement. Saffle started at Avalon on Tuesday. His last day at the Corrections Department was June 1.

Saffle joins a list of other former state corrections and juvenile affairs officials
who have gone to work for Avalon. Mary Livers, the former associate director of the Corrections Department, is Avalon's chief operating officer.She joined the company in December. Clinton E. Johnson also worked for the Corrections Department as an
administrator while Marvin Wiebner worked for the Office of Juvenile Affairs until 1999. Both are vice presidents at Avalon.

Saffle became corrections director in 1997 and had a long administrative career with the agency. He was a regional director before becoming head of the department and had been warden at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

He was praised for his no- nonsense approach and even suspended himself
and Livers in March when problems with the agency's inmate classification system were reported. Saffle joins an industry that has an important -- and perhaps growing -- role with the state.

Avalon manages three minimum-security centers in Tulsa, the minimum-security Carver Center in Oklahoma City and a medium-security juvenile jail in Union City.

The company is expanding its Riverside Intermediate Sanction Unit in Tulsa. Renovations at Riverside, when complete, will provide 44 beds for probation
and parole violators, 120 beds for public drunks and 192 beds for "alternative sentencing" inmates. Those inmates will stay at Riverside in a halfway-house setting but will pay for their incarceration instead of entering the corrections system, Smith said.

The company's focus on community sentencing could reap benefits, Avalon's Smith said. "That's the trend, not just in Oklahoma, but all over." Although the state's $3 million community sentencing budget is virtually unchanged from last year, chances are good that those figures will expand.

"I think there's a feeling out there that we have more people locked up than
we need," said Jerry Garcia, a fiscal analyst for the state House of Representatives. "We're trying to shift more toward community sentencing anyway."

Saffle agreed. "That's something I think will pay off for the state," he said.