RI Corrections Director A. T. Wall to Speak at Thursday Night Supper Program on April 19

A. T. Wall, the director of Rhode Island's Department of Corrections (ACI), will be the featured speaker for the Thursday Night Supper (TNS) Program on April 19, at 5:00 p.m. TNS is held at 58 Keene Street, the home of the chaplain of the University,
the Rev. Janet Cooper Nelson. Open to the public.

Directions to 58 Keene Street are available here. Learn more about the 40-year tradition of the Thursday Night Supper Program at Brown.

Ashbel T. ("A.T.") Wall II was appointed director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections in March 2000. Prior to his appointment, he was the ACI's assistant director of administration for six years and interim director for one year. Wall is the first native Rhode Islander and first employee from within departmental ranks to lead the agency in 22 years.

As director, Wall oversees a comprehensive correctional agency, including the Rhode Island jail, prison, probation, parole, transitional housing, and home confinement systems. He is responsible for setting policy direction and supervising all operations for a department that manages about 3,500 pretrial and sentenced inmates in 8 institutions and 27,000 offenders on probation, parole, and community confinement. The budget totals approximately $160 million, and its staff complement is 1,600.

In addition to his departmental duties, Wall serves on numerous state and national commissions, including those relating to institutional security, prison overcrowding, racial disparity, and probation and parole. He is a member of the state's Information Resources Management Board, which sets policy for Rhode Island's management information systems development.

He has also served as an expert witness for the Federal District Court in the areas of correctional administration and inmate management (security issues, classification, and gangs) for major litigation on conditions of confinement in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico's correctional institutions (1994 to 1999).

Wall worked for two years as a principal policy analyst in the Rhode Island Governor's Office handling issues relating to criminal and juvenile justice and corrections, as well as child abuse, neglect, and other aspects of child welfare, mental health, and retardation.

Wall earned both his undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University. While in law school, he worked as a probation officer for the State of Connecticut. Prior to starting his service in Rhode Island, he served in the District Attorney's Office for New York County and the Vera Institute of Justice, where he directed the Manhattan Community Service Sentencing Project.

Photo and bio courtesy of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections.