Wyatt Detention Facility among nation’s highest rated

CENTRAL FALLS – The Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility was awarded its fourth three-year accreditation and a nearly perfect score of 99.7 percent in its latest audit by the American Correctional Association (ACA) Commission on Accreditation, center officials said today.
Only 1,500 U.S. correctional facilities – 17.6 percent of the roughly 8,500 facilities nationwide – are fully accredited, noted the Central Falls Detention Facility Corp., which owns and operates Wyatt. The Central Falls facility has maintained continuous accreditation since 1995, when it applied for its first ACA rating. It is the first and only ACA-accredited facility in Rhode Island.
“This is a real tribute to Warden Wayne Salisbury and his entire staff for their hard work, extra effort every day … and speaks volumes on their commitment to excellence and professionalism,” Anthony Ventetuolo Jr., executive director of the CFDF Corp., said of the center’s score. “It’s even more extraordinary given the incredible changes the staff and facility have undergone in the last two years.”
Those changes have included a recent $50 million expansion that more than doubled Wyatt’s size, staff and detainee population – it now has a 700-detainee capacity – and CFDF’s August takeover from Cornell Corrections, the private firm that had managed the detention center since its construction in 1993.
“A nearly perfect accreditation rating [not only validates] our decision to manage the facility, but clearly demonstrates to the City of Central Falls and each and every one of our partner agencies and financial institutions that we have not missed a beat – and, in fact, have become even more proficient and attentive,” Al Romanowicz, chairman of the CFDF, said in a statement.
The ACA’s latest three-day audit – a comprehensive three-day examination conducted by a team of investigators with more than 100 years of senior-level correctional management – found the Wyatt center met all but one of the 384 standards listed in the association’s Adult Local Detention Facilities Manual, 4th Edition. The standards cover everything from a prison’s security and physical plant to use of force, medical care, programs and food services; 60 of those standards relate to life safety and must be passed.
But the Central Falls facility’s one shortfall was minor, related to the number of showerheads in a new living pod, the CFDF said.
“The Wyatt has addressed it, and is finishing this installation, and will appeal this specific finding before May 2008, when the formal commission award is presented,” the company said, adding: “With the inevitable compliance of this one last standard, the Wyatt Detention Facility will enjoy an incredible 100-percent rating and distinguish itself as truly one of the leading facilities in the United States.”
Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls – a medium- to maximum-security facility constructed in 1993, and now owned and operated by the Central Falls Detention Facility Corp. – houses federal detainees from across the Northeast, operating under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Marshall Service, the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies that require detainee transport and short-term detention. For more information, visit www.wyattdetention.com.

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