The legislative intent behind OCO, as set forth in RCW 43.06C.005, is to assist in strengthening DOC's practices and procedures to lessen the likelihood of adverse actions happening to the health, safety, welfare, and rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals.
Early on, OCO recognized that there was a greater need for external stakeholder input into DOC policies. OCO encouraged DOC to send out notifications when DOC policies were up for review and to create a process for external stakeholders - including OCO - to give feedback. DOC started sending out regular notices for a two week stakeholder input review period for all policies prior to finalization.
In response, OCO created a Policy Advisor role to regularly respond and coordinate OCO input into DOC policies. Our hope is that if we can assist in the creation of positive policy reform on the front end, it will ultimately improve conditions for incarcerated individuals and reduce the need for the longer investigation and systemic policy review reports that comprise the majority of OCO's report on the backend.
All interested stakeholders can review DOC's draft policy revisions here and submit comments to DOC. Draft policies are typically posted Friday afternoons and comment periods close two weeks after that. At this time, there is no easy way for incarcerated individuals to submit comments as the process is online, but OCO strongly encourages DOC to develop a process for collecting and considering feedback from the incarcerated population.
The following are OCO's submitted comments on DOC policies:
DOC Policy 100.500 Non-Discrimination for Individuals
DOC Policy 110.100 Prison Management Expectations
DOC Policy 310.000 Orientation
DOC Policy 310.300 Skill Building Unit
DOC Policy 330.600 Prisons Compact
DOC Policy 350.200 Transition and Release
DOC Policy 390.590 Graduated Reentry
DOC Policy 400.025 Department ID Cards
DOC Policy 400.280 Legal Name Change
DOC Policy 400.410 Assignments to Specialized Units
DOC Policy 420.140 Cell Room Assignment
DOC Policy 420.311 Dry Cell Watch
DOC Policy 440.010 Personal Property for Reentry Centers
DOC Policy 440.080 Hygiene and Grooming of Incarcerated Individuals
DOC Policy 450.300 Visits for Incarcerated Individuals
DOC Policy 450.310 Visits and Social Outings for Work/Training Release
DOC Policy 470.500 Security Threat Groups
DOC Policy 470.540 Group Violence Reduction Strategy
DOC Policy 510.010 Library Services
DOC Policy 600.000 Health Services Management
DOC Policy 610.240 Therapeutic Diets
DOC Policy 610.650 Outpatient Services
DOC Policy 620.200 Death of Incarcerated Individuals
DOC Policy 630.540 Involuntary Antipsychotic Administration
DOC Policy 650.020 Pharmaceutical Management
DOC Policy 890.620 Emergency Medical Treatment