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Investigation: DOC early release errors blamed on no ‘quick fix'

A glitch in Washington's Department of Corrections sentencing system caused 3,200 prisoners to be released from prison about two months early over the past 13 years. (AP)

A nearly two-month investigation into the early release of prisoners over a 13-year period was released Thursday, with the report finding a series of missteps and lack of prioritization or follow up by several employees at the Department of Corrections was to blame for the agency's failure to quickly fix the error once it was brought to their attention.

Key Developments:

  • The governor's investigators find no malicious or criminal intent.
  • They say Assistant attorney general Ronda Larson was mistaken when she assumed large resources would have been  required to fix the glich, she failed to properly assess the magnitude of the problem, and failed to monitor whether the glich had been fixed. 
  • That said, it was up to DOC managers to see the implications and order a quick fix. Instead they let the timing slide and were unable to explain why.
  • Investigators ultimately blame bureaucracy, incompetence, lack of systemic processes
  • Among their recommendations, make all AAG opinions subject to supervisor review and approval, create an ombudsman position that employees can go to with concerns, emphasize that the core mission of the agency is public safety.

Two former federal prosecutors, hired in late December by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, said they found nothing in their investigation that was criminally actionable as a result of the programming error that led to the early release of up to 3,200 prisoners since 2002 because of miscalculated sentences. At least two deaths have been tied to the early releases.

"The early release of thousands of prisoners over 13 years was caused by a series of errors coupled with bureaucratic incompetence, systemic failures of process and management, and an inexplicable failure both on an institutional and individual level to appreciate the fact that releasing even one inmate early, let alone thousands, undermined the core mission of the Department of Corrections, which is to protect the public," the 52-page report reads.

The report makes several recommendations, including requiring the state attorney general to review and approve all advice from that office to the Department of Corrections. It also calls for the agency to appoint an outside monitor, changes to the prioritization process for IT issues, and requiring assistant secretaries to be notified of any systemwide errors affecting sentencing, release or supervision of offenders.

The agency was first alerted to the error in December 2012, when a victim's family learned of a prisoner's imminent release.

The family did its own calculations and found he was being credited with too much time.

Assistant attorney general Ronda Larson advised the agency at the time that it wasn't necessary to manually recalculate other prisoners' sentences, saying that waiting for a programming fix for the other cases should be sufficient. However, that fix was repeatedly delayed for the next three years.

The report said that Larson's advice "created a risk to public safety and undermined the core mission of DOC."

"Her advice appears to have played a part in DOC's lethargic response to this problem," the investigators wrote.

The report lists seven employees at the Department of Corrections who learned of the error, including previous chief information officers, records managers, IT analysts responsible for shepherding the fix and an assistant secretary who did not notify other high ranking officials in the agency of the error.

Of the seven, the report notes that Wendy Stigall, the records manager who learned of the problem in December 2012, "did an admirable job of notifying DOC managers and others of the problem and in initiating the computer fix."

"Ms. Stigall waited for almost three years, however, to intervene or seek management involvement in light of the repeated delays by IT in correcting the early release date programming error," the report says.

The release of the report comes as a Senate panel continues to hold public hearings as part of its own separate probe related to the error.

Ira Feuer, the chief information officer for Department of Corrections since last August, was the latest to testify before the Senate Law and Justice Committee. He told lawmakers Thursday morning there had been a systemic problem within the agency related to prioritizing IT issues. He told lawmakers he became aware of the problem in November. Once he realized the magnitude of the issue, he said he brought it to the attention corrections Secretary Dan Pacholke the following month. The governor's office was then notified of the issue.

So far, three people — including Pacholke — have resigned in the fallout from the error. Pacholke is still on the job until a replacement is named.

A software fix to the coding error was implemented last month.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Cox Media Group

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