DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION
The Delaware Department of Correction supervises about 7,000 inmates in its prisons and approximately 17,000 probationers in the community.
The Department is the only government operated correction agency in the State. Delaware runs what is called a unified corrections system. Delaware has no regional, county or municipal correction or jail system and no separate probation system. Offenders immediately become the responsibility of the State, including: pre-trial and sentenced, misdemeanor and felony, and jail and prison and all community based sanctions.
Data reveals the State corrections effort is largely a jail system with approximately 20,000 offenders admitted for incarceration and 20,000 released each year.
Currently, 57% are sentenced to serve more than one year. 24% are sentenced to less than one year. The remaining 19% are offenders in detention status (either prior to conviction/acquittal or held awaiting sentencing). In Delaware, prison is defined as those serving one or more years. Jail is defined as those serving less than a year.
Many in detention are held solely because they cannot make bail. These numbers reflect the huge volume of people flowing into Delaware correctional facilities.
The average length of stay for the detention population is 113.8 days.
The average length of stay for the jailed population is 63.1 days.
The average length of stay for the prison population is 20.8 months.
The average length of time already served by those offenders serving life sentences is 9.0 years.
The average length of time already served by those on death row is 9.25 years.
Approximately 97% of the inmate population will eventually be released to the community.
It costs about $29,300 a year to incarcerate one inmate. Prisons are about 20 times more costly per person, per day than regular probation.
Delaware's sanctioning is unique. Instead of two options, probation or jail, there are five options:
- Level V = Jail or Prison *
- Level IV = Work Release, Residential Drug Treatment, Home Confinement, Violation of Probation Incarceration
- Level III = Intensive Probation Supervision
- Level II = Probation Supervision
- Level I = Unsupervised Probation
*Jail describes those offenders serving one year or less. Prison describes those offenders serving more than one year. Both sets of individuals serve their time in the same correctional facilities.
These sentencing options provide a range of distinctions with increasing severity of intervention and provide for a range of interventions within each level. This approach allows the sentence to be tailored to the individual offender's level of risk and need.
These options, horizontally and vertically, permit the State to focus on sentencing and to monitor results. A statutory Commission oversees the process for compliance and for adjusting policy based on results.
Delaware also has Truth-in-Sentencing (T-I-S). The law sets sentence length with little allowance for time off due to good behavior. Parole is abolished, except for the dwindling number who continue in the system with sentences imposed prior to Truth-in-Sentencing which started in 1990.
The Truth-in-Sentencing law was designed to be neutral on prison census. T-I-S makes it clearer what length of time the offender will be incarcerated. The time to be served under the new law approximates time served overall under the old sentencing codes. Prison increases in census are due to several reasons: increases in crime or the state's population or increases in the definition or number of offenses that result in jail or prison terms.
VISION:
- In its commitment to public safety, the Department of Correction will assure every offender is fully accountable to themselves, to their families, to their victims, to their neighbors and, to their community.
- This accountability has a short-term and a long-term component. The short-term component incorporates the traditional functions such as tight security of prisons and effective surveillance and supervision in the community. The long-term component requires growth and development by offenders through their participation in programming such as: conflict resolution, education, substance abuse treatment, vocational training and community service.
- The Department will require offenders to participate in those programs documented to have a positive effect on offenders remaining crime free.
AUTHORITY:
As a component of the Executive Branch of government, The Department of Correction reports to the Office of the Governor and receives its statutory authority from the Delaware Code, Titles 11 and 29.
MISSION:
The Department of Correction is committed to:
Protect the public by supervising adult offenders and by directing them to treatment, education and work programs.
