Job Description

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Performs highly advanced executivelevel correctional management work providing statewide leadership, direction, oversight, and accountability for the safe, secure, orderly, and effective operation of all Texas Juvenile Justice Department stateoperated secure facilities.

Responsible for establishing and maintaining effective correctional operations, institutional security, staff and youth safety, operational discipline, emergency preparedness and response, and consistent compliance with agency policies, procedures, standards, and applicable state and federal requirements.

Provides executive leadership and direction to secure facility superintendents and establishes clear expectations for institutional operations, security practices, staff accountability, youth supervision and movement, dorm management, staffing deployment, use of force, emergency response, incident management, and overall operational readiness.

Ensures secure facilities maintain the operational stability, structure, staffing practices, security protocols, and correctional environment necessary to safely and effectively implement the Texas Model of traumaresopnsive corrections and deliver education, treatment, behavioral health, rehabilitative, and other youth services.

Directs continuous assessment of facility safety and operational performance and ensures timely corrective action when security, operational, staffing, policy, training, or leadership deficiencies are identified. Uses incident data, operational assessments, investigations, audits, security reviews, and other performance measures to identify trends, evaluate risk, and improve facility operations.

Works collaboratively with the Executive Director, Deputy Executive Director for State Services, Director of Integrated Treatment, facility leadership, and other agency executives to maintain safe and effective correctional environments while advancing evidencebased treatment and rehabilitation.

Primary responsibility is the safe, secure, orderly, and effective operation of TJJD's stateoperated secure facilities. Institutional security and operational stability provide the foundation necessary for the effective delivery of education, treatment, behavioral health, rehabilitative, volunteer, faithbased, and other services.

Oversees daily operations and provides executive direction for safe and secure practices at all campuses. Work involves establishing strategic goals and objectives; developing and enforcing policies, procedures, standards, and expectations; establishing operational priorities and performance measures; evaluating facility activities and performance; reviewing and approving budgets; allocating resources; and interacting with internal and external stakeholders.

Supervises all secure facility superintendents and holds facility leadership accountable for safety, security, operational performance, staff competency, policy compliance, and effective facility management.

Works under minimal supervision with extensive latitude for the use of initiative and independent judgment. May be required to work in excess of 40 hours per work week, be oncall 24 hours per day, respond to significant facility incidents and emergencies, and travel frequently.

Essential Job Duties

Provides executive leadership, direction, and accountability for the safe, secure, orderly, and effective operation of all TJJD stateoperated secure facilities.

Directs and maintains executive oversight of statewide secure correctional operations, including institutional security, youth supervision and movement, dorm operations, staffing deployment, searches and contraband control, use of force, mechanical restraints, chemical agents, emergency response, incident management, facility lockdowns and other restrictive operational statuses, and restoration of normal operations following significant incidents.

Establishes clear correctional standards and operational expectations for facility superintendents and holds facility leadership accountable for consistent implementation of agency security policies, procedures, post orders, standard operating procedures, staffing plans, and correctional practices.

Ensures facility leadership maintains effective command, control, communication, supervisory oversight, and staff accountability across all shifts and operational areas.

Monitors and evaluates facility safety and security performance using incident data, staff and youth assault trends, useofforce data, staffing information, security audits, operational assessments, investigations, compliance reviews, and other performance indicators. Directs corrective action when deficiencies, vulnerabilities, or adverse trends are identified.

Provides executive direction and oversight during critical incidents, including serious staff or youth assaults, disturbances, escapes or attempted escapes, major security breaches, significant contraband events, facility emergencies, and other events affecting institutional safety or continuity of operations.

Ensures secure facilities maintain effective systems for shift briefings and handoffs, post coverage, supervisory rounds, security inspections, searches, contraband interdiction, key and tool control, youth accountability, emergency preparedness, and other fundamental correctional practices.

Ensures staff demonstrate competency in core correctional practices, including youth supervision, safe movement and escorts, dorm management, situational awareness, deescalation, use of force, restraints, emergency response, searches, contraband control, and implementation of established security procedures.

Works with the agency's juvenile justice training academy and operational leadership to identify correctional training needs, establish competency expectations, address performance deficiencies, and strengthen the readiness of the securefacility workforce.

Directs regular assessments of institutional safety, operational readiness, staffing effectiveness, policy adherence, and correctional practices and requires facility leadership to develop and implement corrective action plans when deficiencies are identified.

Directs the management of secure facility operations and provides direction, guidance, supervision, and technical assistance to facility superintendents and assistant superintendents.

Establishes goals, objectives, operating policies, standards, performance expectations, and accountability measures consistent with the agency's strategic plan and public safety mission.

Works with the Executive Director and other executive staff to identify strategies for secure facility operations, institutional safety, correctional reform, workforce development, treatment effectiveness, and evidencebased approaches.

Ensures the safe and effective integration of correctional operations with education, treatment, behavioral health, case management, recreation, rehabilitative programming, and other services necessary to support positive youth outcomes and reduce recidivism.

Works with executive staff and researchers to identify the risks and needs of the youth population and determine appropriate placements, staffing approaches, security strategies, treatment interventions, and services.

Develops, implements, monitors, enforces, and evaluates rules, policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines governing secure facility operations and ensures compliance with applicable federal and state requirements.

Reviews significant incidents, special investigations, internal audits, security assessments, research studies, forecasts, and other information to identify systemic risks and provide direction for corrective action and continuous improvement.

Advocates for the operational, staffing, security, infrastructure, training, and other resource needs of secure facilities and works with agency partners to ensure facilities have the resources necessary to operate safely and effectively.

Oversees and/or prepares division budgets, reviews and approves major expenditures, establishes resource priorities, and ensures compliance with applicable funding requirements.

Actively embodies and supports the Texas Model and ensures its principles are implemented within a safe, structured, accountable, and appropriately secure correctional environment.

Performs all duties in compliance with agency safety policies and procedures:

• Reports safety hazards and corrects hazards when possible.
• Completes required documentation in the event of an accident/injury within requested time frames.

Attends work on a regular and predictable schedule in accordance with agency attendance and leave policies.

Extensive travel will be required.

Actively embody and support the Texas Model by demonstrating its core values in daily tasks and interactions with others.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree with major coursework in criminal justice, corrections, public administration, business administration, social work, behavioral science, or a related field.

Ten (10) years of fulltime wageearning experience in correctional operations, institutional operations, juvenile justice secure facility operations, or a closely related field involving responsibility for the safety, security, custody, supervision, programming, or operation of individuals in a secure institutional setting.

Six (6) years of the required experience must be in progressively responsible supervisory, management, or executive leadership positions overseeing, managing, or directing correctional operations, secure institutional operations, or a comparable complex organization.

The required management experience must include substantial responsibility for staff supervision, institutional operations, safety and security, policy implementation, operational accountability, and organizational performance.

Experience and Education Substitutions:

One year of appropriate experience may substitute for one year of college (30 course hours) on a year for year basis.

Completed course hours of undergraduate study may substitute for up to four years of experience on a basis of 30 course hours for one year of experience.

Completed course hours of graduate study may substitute for up to two years of experience on a basis of 12 graduate course hours for one year of experience.

Prorated parttime experience may satisfy the experience requirement .

Note: Any degree, diploma, high school equivalent, or course hours required to meet minimum qualifications must be from an accredited educational institution.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience serving in a senior executive, regional, commandlevel, superintendent, warden, or comparable leadership position with responsibility for the operation or oversight of multiple secure correctional institutions or facilities.
• Experience directing largescale correctional operations involving institutional security, staffing, emergency response, use of force, incident management, policy compliance, and operational performance.
• Experience leading organizational or operational improvement initiatives within a correctional or secure institutional environment.
• Experience working within juvenile justice, adult corrections, or another secure institutional system with responsibility for integrating safe correctional operations with treatment, education, rehabilitation, or reentry services.

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities

• Knowledge of local, state, and federal laws and regulations applicable to juvenile justice, corrections, and secure institutional operations.
• Knowledge of correctional security principles, practices, and techniques, including institutional security, custody and control, youth movement, searches, contraband interdiction, use of force, mechanical restraints, chemical agents, emergency response, incident command, staffing and post deployment, and management of restrictive operational conditions.
• Knowledge of correctional leadership principles, including command presence, chain of command, supervisory accountability, staff deployment, shift operations, operational readiness, maintenance of institutional order, and management of complex secure environments.
• Knowledge of emergency preparedness and response procedures, including serious assaults, disturbances, escapes and attempted escapes, security breaches, deaths, natural disasters, and other critical incidents.
• Knowledge of principles and practices associated with traumainformed juvenile corrections and the integration of security, accountability, treatment, education, rehabilitation, and positive youth development within a secure environment.
• Knowledge of principles and practices of public administration, organizational management, budgeting, strategic planning, and performance management.
• Skill in planning, managing, directing, and evaluating the overall operations of multiple secure facilities.
• Skill in assessing institutional security vulnerabilities, identifying operational deficiencies, directing corrective action, and evalu