Warden retiring after career in corrections
“It’s been a life sentence here,” said Washington County jail Warden John Temas on Friday as he wrapped up an interview in the jail’s administrative wing about his announcement, in a closed session of the prison board this week, that he intends to retire June 10.
Temas, 57, a Mon Valley resident and Marianna native, started as a per-diem corrections officer and cook at the old county jail in 1981, never knowing that he’d advance through the ranks to the top job.
In early 2013, Temas, deputy warden since 1988, succeeded Warden Joseph Pelzer of Charleroi. He also was deputy warden of operations when the Washington County Correctional Facility opened in 1996.
During Temas’ tenure as warden, the jail in 2014 opened its first-ever booking center, where prisoner are arraigned via video hookup with district judges after regular court hours and on weekends and holidays.
“It was probably one of the best-coordinated intergovernmental projects,” Temas said of the effort by jail officials, district judges and police departments. “There were so many different agencies involved. I think it was a good service to the public to provide protection. The whole theory of that was to get the police back out on the streets” rather than spending hours minding prisoners or driving them hither and yon to reach the office of an on-duty district judge.
He pointed to jail Capt. Mark Stewart and Sgt. Eli Chipps, who “made it quite easy to move forward with that project. They really took ownership of it.”
If the opening of a booking center stands out as a positive development, four deaths among the inmate population over the past two years were certainly the opposite.
Temas said of suicides, “The only thing you can do is provide the best services you possibly can to detect it. You find circumstances like that very stressful.”
Last year, the Washington County jail entered into a contract with Greene County jail to accept Washington County prisoners – mostly women – when the jail in the Courthouse Square complex reaches maximum occupancy. It has not had to avail itself of Greene County cells so far this year. Temas attributed Washington County jail’s influx of female prisoners to both heroin addiction and mental health issues.
The warden’s most recent report to Washington County Prison Board shows the jail, at the end of March, housed 351 prisoners, 281 men and 70 women. The number of prisoners awaiting trail or sentencing stood at 202.
Not having enough space in Washington County jail has been alleviated by the county’s drug court and initiation this year of a pretrial services program that allows the potential release of nonviolent offenders.
When the prison board promoted Temas three years ago, the board chairman, Commissioner Larry Maggi, credited Temas with doing his part in the jail’s attaining a series of 100 percent rankings from the state Department of Corrections. Eight certificates reflecting these rankings line the walls of the jail’s conference room.
How broad of a net the prison board will cast in its search for the warden’s replacement is still being pondered, said Maggi, a former state trooper and sheriff who has dealt with Temas in those capacities, too.
“His character and work ethic are exemplary,” Maggi said of the warden. “His job is very stressful. He’s responsible for inmates and staff and their safety. He provides every human basic need to these individuals. The board of commissioners and prison board think he’s done a good job. We know how difficult that is.”
When he leaves behind his $78,210-per-year job, Temas expects to spend his free time with his family, including two grandchildren, working on his home and rental properties and boating and fishing on the Monongahela River.
“It’s time to turn a new page,” Temas said. “It’s time to move on.”