Preparing Convicts for Law-Abid Li

In 23 years of directing California corrections, and in his national leadership that included 16 active years following retirement, McGee promoted both reformation and control of convicts. His efforts helped make staffing prisons a non-political career service, improved inmate academic and vocational education, divided large prisons into quite autonomous smaller units, expanded treatment for drug addicts, fostered prisoner contacts with their families, and encouraged new types of counseling. He also developed more intensive supervision and assistance for both parolees and probationers. And, perhaps most importantly, he created a golden age for rigorous evaluation research in corrections, including assessment of practices by controlled experiments. He brilliantly gained both bipartisan support for these innovations and for changes in criminal laws.