APRIL/MAY

WARDEN FROM FSU IS TOUGH AND SMART

By Katrina Miles

It's not a traditional linear style jail with clinking bars and slamming doors. Here, deputies rely on their verbal skills to maintain order rather than the use of force or violence. Inmates are given the opportunity to prove that they can live within a community-style setting rather than being "locked down."

And at the head of it all is a Florida State graduate, Major Elaine Williams White - not your traditional jail warden.

"It's more humane," she said of her style of jail. White is the major of the Orient Road County Jail in Tampa. She is also the first woman in the history of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office to become the head of a large county jail.

The jail is a "direct supervision" institution with more than 1,800 inmates. Most are men, though one unit houses women. Some of the inmates are sentenced to death, and the jail, though it is not traditional, is still maximum security.

"With linear or traditional style jails, everything is reactive," White said. "There are bars that separate the staff from the inmate. We look through the bars. We see something. We react. Whereas in direct supervision, we're proactive because we're preventing incidents from occurring."

The Orient Road Jail is recognized throughout the country as a benchmark for that type of jail.

White began her career 17 years ago with the County Sheriff's Office after graduating with a degree in criminology from FSU.

"I really like the work and respect the profession," she said. "There aren't a lot of women in this line of work, but I knew what I wanted to do, and I credit FSU for helping get me here."

Elaine White grew up, for the most part, in a town 45 minutes outside of Tampa called Dundee. She is the daughter of migrant workers, who traveled to agricultural states to harvest crops.

"It was a very hard and difficult life because there was no way to boost your self-esteem, and being a young black woman, my outlook was very bleak," she said. "I felt that I was destined to travel the path my mother, sisters, and people in my neighborhood had traveled."

But a teacher recognized her intelligence, and put her in touch with the counselors of FSU's Horizons Unlimited program.

"It was truly the opportunity of my life," she said. "And it was a very tumultuous time in my family, because I was part of the people who harvested crops. I was a big girl, and I was expected to be there and depended on. It was rough on my family because no one had ever pulled away before."

"Florida State just shined a big spotlight on me, and rolled out the red carpet They saw something in me that at the time I couldn't see in myself."

Sometimes she wanted to give up.

"I must have gone home at least ten times, and those counselors would say, 'stay just one more semester' - which turned into one more, and then another," she said. "And they were very encouraging and would say things like, 'you're very intelligent, you have this wonderful opportunity and Florida State really likes you.'

"And one day it just all clicked for me. I grew up and entered the criminology department and knew what I wanted to do, and knew that Florida State would always be there to help me realize my goals. While I was there, in Tallahassee, I felt like a queen.

"Florida State treated me good," she said, with a big smile.

White applies skills she learned at FSU to her job running the county jail.

" I was very prepared when I left Florida State," she said. "As part of the criminology department I spent a lot of time looking at penal systems and management."

Part of that preparation was polling about 20 of the major sheriff's offices in the country to find out which were more progressive. She wanted to work for the best.

"It just so happened that the best one, the most proactive one, the one with the most vision - the one that was recruiting female staff and people with degrees - happened to be the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office."

White has risen through the ranks at lightning speed. She began as a deputy. Two years later, she was made a corporal. Two years later, she made sergeant, and then lieutenant, and three years later she made captain. In 1996, she became the first female major.

She has been breaking ground with the Sheriff's Office in other ways as well.

"I can remember when all this was swamp land," she said of the Orient Road Jail site. "When we opened this jail in 1990, it was cutting edge."

Every day, she said, she makes sure all budgetary concerns are handled, in addition to the care and custody of the inmates.

"I know all the staff by name and I know most of the inmates by name," she said.

"I'm only required by state law to come back here twice a year," she said, walking through the parts of her jail where inmates circulate. "But I come back here every day."

And she goes unarmed. At the Orient Road Jail, as in state prisons, guards do not carry guns or sticks.

"With direct supervision, there's a certain level of communication and control that has to be maintained," said White. "When a deputy sees a situation with an inmate getting into something, the first thing they do is talk with them, or move them into a holding area to calm down."White said it's a last resort to put your hands on an inmate.

The jail is a microcosm of the world outside. There are doctors, dentists, attorneys, mail services and a small-scale hospital

"When we designed this facility we had this in mind - to save money," she said. "And we do. We save the taxpayers lots of money every year on transportation costs, medical, dental, legal fees."

White said when she started at the jail, there was a tendency to take her work home.

"You see all these young people who should be at the pinnacle of their lives and careers, but they're going to jail for the rest of their lives; It messes with your head just from a human point of view, " she said. "And when you get to a level in management that I'm in, you have to just recognize that everyone has choices and move on."

White recalled a day in the jail about two years ago that made her choice clear.

"There was a guy who started the program with me - Horizons Unlimited," she said. "I was walking down this very hall. He couldn't remember my name, but he remembered Reynolds Hall. And he just yelled out, 'Reynolds Hall! Florida State University!' - and I looked up because I was like - 'hey, that's me.'

"He told me he couldn't remember my name and said we were in the same cluster. He talked to me strongly that day, said he regretted not finishing school and not listening to the counselors.

He was on Death Row.

"And I think about him often. And I think about the life I could have led. And I'm so grateful to Florida State because there's no way - absolutely - Florida State, God and my mom have to take all the credit for who I am, what I've become."

Since White graduated from Florida State, her brother and a niece have also successfully completed degree programs at FSU.

"Because my family associates my success with that school, Florida State will be graduating people from my family, especially the younger people, from now on," she said.

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