Suzanne M. Schmitt takes helm at Racine County-based
correctional facility for women
RACINE – Wisconsin Department of Corrections Secretary Matt Frank today
announced that he has appointed Suzanne M. Schmitt to be the new
Superintendent of the Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center (REECC).
“Suzanne Schmitt brings three decades’ worth of corrections experience
to her new management role,” Secretary Frank said. “Her leadership skills
will be tremendous assets to the correctional center and its mission to
provide safe, secure and humane custody of female offenders, while
preparing them for success when they return to the community.”
“As Superintendent of REECC, one of four facilities in the Wisconsin
Women’s Correctional System, Schmitt will play an important role in
advancing the Department’s goal to provide gender-specific educational,
vocational, treatment and parenting programming that holds female
offenders accountable while providing them with an opportunity to live
law-abiding lives when they have completed their prison sentence,”
Secretary Frank continued.
Secretary Frank created the Wisconsin Women’s Correctional System in
2005 within the Department’s Division of Adult Institutions to improve the
Department’s system for managing incarcerated female offenders.
Schmitt began her corrections career in 1976 as a Probation & Parole
Agent and promoted in 1990 to Field Supervisor in regions serving
Milwaukee and Waukesha. In 2001, she was appointed Section Chief-Program
Planning and Evaluation Office in the Division of Correctional Programs.
In May 2003, Schmitt was appointed Corrections Management Services
Director at Taycheedah Correctional Institution (TCI), where she worked
until her appointment at REECC. While at TCI, Schmitt served as a member
of the transition team that oversaw the move of the Intake Unit for female
inmates from the Dodge Correctional Institution, the Department’s intake
facility for men, to TCI, the state’s largest prison for women. The move,
which took effect in December 2004, was designed to improve the
Department’s assessment and evaluation process for women newly sentenced
to prison.
In addition, Schmitt has worked as Health Facility Surveyor for the
state Department of Health and Family Services Bureau of Quality
Compliance and was a partner in a property management firm in the
Milwaukee area. She has a bachelor’s degree in social work from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and has completed coursework in
accounting, business management and computer software programs at the
Milwaukee Area Technical College.
Schmitt replaces former REECC Superintendent Ann Krueger, who moved in
October 2006 to the Kenosha Correctional Center as Superintendent.
Schmitt’s appointment took effect Nov. 26.
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