North Carolina Jail Administrators’ Association

The year 2009 is gone. Hope everyone had a great CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR. The board of directors is looking for a good year as we all begin the new year of 2010.

We are planning a workshop to further expand what we can do for the detention facilities across the great state of North Carolina, focusing on new ideas and the future of the NCJAA.

We are in the process of putting together the training for the regional training sessions and annual conference. If anyone has a topic they would like to see, please let a Board Member know. The annual conference will be held again this year at the Embassy Suites in Greensboro.

Read the full February 2010 Newsletter

Hello everyone! I am your new President for the 2009-2010 year. My name is Wendell Sain; I am Jail Administrator from the  Davie County Detention Center in Mocksville, NC.  I am here to serve you in anyway possible.

As your President I am open for any ideas or suggestions that you may have that will make our association better equipped  to serve the members and detention centers across the state.

Read the full November 2009 Newsletter

As the lazy days of summer are coming to a close and we are gearing up to get the kids back in school, I hope that everyone had the opportunity to have a great summer vacation and spend time with family and friends. Time certainly goes by quickly as it seems not too long ago, we were discussing our anticipation for the upcoming year and now the Annual Conference is just around the corner and before you know it the holidays will be upon us! I actually saw a Christmas commercial on television yesterday advertising gift cards for Sears…time certainly goes by quickly!  [read more]

Read the full August 2009 Newsletter

As I write this message, I have been reflecting on my recent trip to Atlantic Beach, North Carolina for the 2009 Jail Health Update where I had the opportunity and pleasure to speak about my view of mental health care and treatment for inmates from a Jail Administrator’s perspective.

I was dreading this assignment that Hazel Moore assigned to me, as I did not feel that I had enough knowledge to speak to a group of medical professionals on this subject. However, I surprised myself…[read more]

Read the full June 2009 newsletter

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and is looking forward to the days ahead in 2009. I am anticipating a very eventful and exciting year for the North Carolina Jail Administrator’s Association as there seems to be a sense of change on the horizon. There definitely seems to be a strong sense of excitement and anticipation for change in America with the historic inauguration of President Obama. His words gave a renewed sense of dedication, responsibility and most importantly a sense of hope for Americans to meet the many challenges facing our country.

Although on a much smaller scale than President Obama, we are also looking ahead at the challenges that are facing the North Carolina Jail Administrator’s Association. Our Board of Directors are looking at ways for our continued growth and meeting our goals as an association through networking and training.

During our last Board Meeting in December, we got the opportunity to tour the new location for our upcoming Annual Training Conference at the Embassy Suites in Greensboro. We were all very excited for the many new training opportunities that our new location will provide with expanded classrooms, vendor halls and even an area to accommodate a guest speaker or presentation to all attendees. This is a new challenge for us, but we are very excited that all our association members will be happy with this new change. We are all looking forward to the Annual Training Conference scheduled for October of 2009!!  [read more]

Read the full February 2009 Newsletter

The upcoming year will be an exciting opportunity for the North Carolina Jail Administrators’ Association as it will bring both challenges and rewards. I would like to first take a look at some of the accomplishments and successes by starting with the recent Annual Training Conference in High Point. The Conference was clearly a success in many ways reflected in your comments from the evaluations. One of the most difficult challenges the board members face each year is to provide an Annual Training Conference for the members of our Association. The Annual Training Conference is our biggest event of the year and takes a lot of coordination and individual effort to make it a success. This year the Annual Training Conference was the perfect chemistry of vendors, opportunities for networking, informative training sessions, good food and refreshments, an outstanding banquet, good music for entertainment and hopefully you got to see the morning guest speaker, because if you missed it; you missed something very special!! David Browning: The Mayberry Deputy was funny, entertaining and touched everyone’s heart with laughter and a sincere sense of compassion by reflecting on the very human characters that touched our hearts and lives in the town of Mayberry. My personal favorite is when he would imitate “Floyd the Barber” and make sure to see David Browning’s picture with Major Debora (Charlene) Montgomery and the Guilford County Honor Guard!! Thank you very much David as you were awesome and we hope to see you at the Regional Conference since you are an “Associate Member”!! This year the board members, our executive director, other members of the association, instructors and vendors worked extremely well together to deliver an outstanding Annual Training Conference with teamwork and professionalism. It was an outstanding job by everyone!! [read more]

Read the full November 2008 Newsletter

I hope everyone had a great summer and had an opportunity to get away on a family vacation. If your summer was much like mine, I had the opportunity to spend some time at the pool and beach and even managed to spend a family vacation at Disney World. I hope that everyone was able to make a commitment to spend time to strengthen their family relationships which is very important. This summer has been great, but it will soon be over as we prepare to get our children back in school and we begin to refocus and plan for the upcoming months ahead.

Our focus as the Board of Directors is on the upcoming 2008 Annual Training Conference in High Point at the Radisson Hotel on October 1st – 3rd. The Training Committee has completed the breakout training sessions, and we are all looking forward to a great conference with excellent training and an opportunity to network with vendors, jail administrators and other professionals from across the State. [read more]

Read the full August 2008 Newsletter

We have just completed the Regional Training for the year and our Training Committee did an outstanding job! I was very pleased with the participation by our association members from both the East and West Regional Training. The participation was about the same with 65 registered attendees. This was a huge success, especially for the association members from the West. I would like to personally thank all the attendees, and it was good to meet new professionals as well as getting to network with old friends from across the State.

One of the main reasons for the success of the Regional Training is the coordination efforts of Mark Priest and the Staff of the NC Justice Academy. I greatly appreciate all their hospitality and assistance. I would also like to thank all the individual instructors who provided a professional, informative and interactive learning environment. The course evaluations continually reflected the professionalism, knowledge and courtesy of each instructor. I would also like to personally thank Sheriff Davis and Captain Cochran from Henderson County for providing a tour of their Detention Facility and allowing us to get a hands-onview of their newly equipped Transportation Van, a Diesel Dodge Sprinter. he equipment and design was excellent with a redesigned transportation insert and outstanding graphics that clearly displayed the pride of the Henderson County Detention Facility and Sheriff’s Office. You can see he photos in the newsletter but go to our website www.ncjaa.org and check out all the photos from the Regional Training. [read more]

Read the full May 2008 Newsletter

President’s Message…   It seems that the weeks, months and holidays have swiftly gone by and I wonder how the time has moved on so quickly.  It seemed just yesterday that we were celebrating the holidays and ringing in the new year for 2008.  Somehow in the blink of an eye, we moved from January 1st to the beginning of the month of March.  Whether we are ready or not; time is moving on without us and we had better be prepared to move along with the new year as time does not stand still for any one person.

Much of my focus of late has been on budget issues as I am sure is the case with many detention administrators across the state.  We are preparing the fiscal budget for 2009 and tightening our belts in the current year to stretch funds to get us through to June 30th.  Many similar issues that we struggle with in next year’s budget is the pressure to increase revenues, increasing salaries for additional positions to provide adequate staffing, increasing operational lines for training, equipment, uniforms and even capital projects for construction of new facilities or continued building maintenance and repairs.  The same question still arises as we focus on managing detention facilities as being an operation or a business?  Unfortunately, it is a little of both as we do our best to be good stewards of county resources, while managing an efficient facility and generating enough revenue to sustain an ever increasing operational cost. [read more]

Read the full March 2008 Newsletter

As I reflect on my initial comments to the members of our Association I would like to begin by focusing on the Annual Training Conference. One of the most difficult responsibilities the board members have is to provide an Annual Training Conference for the members of our Association. The Annual Training Conference is our biggest event of the year and takes a lot of coordination and individual effort to make it a success. The Annual Training Conference must contain several elements in order to be a success; it must have an influential guest speaker, interesting and informative new training sessions, vendors to showcase their new technology and equipment, along with good food and refreshments, and finally a professional banquet to provide a social event for networking that is fun and enjoyable. Each year the board members, our executive director, other members of the association, instructors and vendors work very hard to bring this event together each year through teamwork and professional dedication. As I sit at home reading over the evaluations, I am making note of some very excellent suggestions by the members of our association to improve next year’s conference, but the reoccurring theme I keep reading is that the Annual Training Conference was another success!! [read more]

Read the full November 2007 Newsletter