Jail among safest in state

Allegheny County Jail is one of the safest in the state, according to one national organization… Allegheny County Jail is one of the safest in the state, according to one national organization that reviews correctional facilities. The jail will receive American Correctional Association Accreditation in Pennsylvania at the group’s conference in Kissimmee, Fla., this January. More than 1,500 correctional facilities have undergone the three-year accreditation process, which was offered for the first time in 1978. ‘The 1,500 includes prisons, but there are only about 147 jails that have it, and that’s out of about 3,300 jails in the country,’ said warden Ramon Rustin. Jails, by definition, tend to be run by local governments, whereas prisons tend to be run by state or federal governments. ‘If you’d work with prisons, they’re a little easier to [work with] compared to jails because the jails are governed by county entities,’ said Rustin. ‘With the county, there is only one per county, so it’s a little harder to do.’ To obtain the accreditation, the Allegheny County Bureau of Corrections met the American Correctional Association’s standards for administration, management, safety and security. The Association assesses the effectiveness of the daily operations of the jail, as well as the well-being of the staff and inmates. The Allegheny County Jail scored 100 percent on all of them. According to the American Correctional Association’s Web site, accreditation offers institutions access to benefits in several categories. These include improved staff training, health care and safety for both the personnel and offenders. Insurance companies also tend to reduce the liability of insurance costs to accredited correctional facilities. The Association also offers a pre-audit assessment to institutions seeking accreditation. ‘It was a huge initiative that we took,’ said Rustin. ‘You really have to work as a team to address all of our areas, and we were doing that for about 15 months, and finally we go it. It was a huge success for us.’