CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. –
The Navy Consolidated Brig Charleston continued its "winning ways" by achieving a nationally unprecedented sixth consecutive 100 percent compliance rating on its American Correctional Association Triennial Reaccreditation Audit recently.
There are currently 26 Airmen employed at NAVCONBRIG. They are responsible for duties as guards, corrections duties, counselors, personnel, administrative and military training leaders for the Return-to-Duty Program.
For a prison, the ACA reaccreditation audit is the pinnacle of validation of its operations and no other prison, military or civilian, in the United States or Canada, has ever achieved six consecutive 100 percent ratings since ACA began accrediting prisons in 1978. With high professional corrections standards and over 138 years experience, ACA is the oldest and largest international correctional association in the world and administers the only national accreditation program for all components of adult and juvenile corrections.
The audit team spent two-and-a-half days touring the facility in extensive detail, talking with prisoners and staff, and carefully reviewing 530 measurable and documented standards. The tour at the beginning of day one took about seven hours and included carefully examining every square inch of the facility, talking with on-duty staff about what their job is and how they do it, while looking closely at all aspects of cleanliness, safety, sanitation, prison climate and ongoing operations. Following the tour, the team examined the standards documentation folders in detail to ensure the brig had policy and procedures for each standard and could document three years worth of their practice. This is no small feat -- in order to achieve a 100 percent compliance rating, the brig had to meet 62 mandatory and 468 non-mandatory standards.
At the conclusion of the audit during the outbrief, after telling the gathered staff that they had in fact again achieved a 100 percent compliance rating, Ms. Skeen told the staff that she "had only participated in two or three 100 percent audits ... " and "had never seen a cleaner facility on an audit."
Mr. Hamburger said that he "could only remember participating in three or four 100 percent audits," and this brig was so clean that it had "the least amount of dirt he'd ever seen in a prison on an audit" and that "the brig's sanitation was above reproach."
The Mr. Kehoe, who had been auditing facilities since 1979, said "it was hard to keep an 18-year old facility this clean" and that in their 18 years of auditing the brig they "couldn't remember another facility with six 100 percent ratings."
In summarizing, Mr. Flowers told staff that there were over 1,500 facilities accredited by ACA and that "maybe a couple had two consecutive 100 percent compliance ratings, but the brig now has six and has set a standard nobody's even close to."
Mr. Flowers also said that achieving a 100 percent is not a "gimme" for the next audit; it just means you have set up a standard for yourself to seek and continue to achieve.