Romney names new correction chief

Six weeks after a report found that "major administrative breakdowns" set the stage for the death of a high-profile inmate in the state prison system, Governor Mitt Romney yesterday named one of the system's longest serving managers to become the Department of Correction commissioner with a mandate to sweep out the old ways of doing things.

Kathleen M. Dennehy, who joined Romney at a State House press conference, pledged to make over the system she has worked in for 28 years.

"I am committed to a culture that looks to the future, that embraces change and relies on new performance measures and accountability systems," said Dennehy, the first woman to head the state prison system.

Her appointment as commissioner was probably set in motion Aug. 23, when John J. Geoghan, a defrocked priest whose alleged abuse helped trigger the clergy sexual abuse scandal, was killed in his prison cell, allegedly by an inmate who was known to be among the prison system's most troublesome.

Geoghan's death prompted state officials to scrutinize a system that, according to the state report released last month, tolerated the abuse and harassment of the defrocked priest by guards. Established policy was disregarded by officials who transferred Geoghan from the medium-security Concord prison to a maximum-security facility in Shirley, according to the report by a three-member panel.

On Dec. 1, Romney removed Michael T. Maloney as correction commissioner. He promoted Dennehy, then deputy commissioner, to acting commissioner. In late January, Dennehy appeared to be settling into the job when she replaced the superintendents of the state prisons in Concord, where Geoghan had been an inmate, and at MCI-Cedar Junction. At the time, her spokeswoman said, Dennehy was moving to install "her own team" in the Correction Department.

Yesterday, Romney credited Dennehy, 49, with making enough improvement as acting commissioner to make an outside search unnecessary.

"She has in the last three months brought a level of performance and accountability and reform that we are all impressed with," Romney said. "She has carried out a whole series of accountability standards work and performance standards."

"So what we have seen in her management has convinced us that her experience, her skill, her commitment to reform, that she is the right person to take this position," the governor said.

Leslie Walker, executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, which represented Geoghan, said she has yet to see many necessary changes enacted. Walker said the only concrete steps taken by Dennehy as acting commissioner were the replacement of Michael Grant as superintendent of MCI-Concord and Peter Allen as superintendent of MCI-Cedar Junction.

"She has removed two superintendents, but they are still working for the Department of Correction," Walker said. "She has fired no one in what was the preventable homicide of John Geoghan. She has made no public announcement of her plan to change the system."

"Do I think she is up to the job? Yes," said Walker. "But it's going to take more than just talk to change the system."

Steve Kenneway, president of the 5,000-member correction officers union, said his focus is on keeping prisons adequately staffed. He said 400 positions are unfilled in the 18-prison system.

"It's a security issue when you have unfilled positions," Kenneway said. "Getting those positions filled is our first priority, and we hope to make it Commission Dennehy's priority."

Dennehy declined to be interviewed after the press conference yesterday. Her salary will be between $120,000 and $128,000, according to a Department of Correction spokesman.

At the news conference, she said that as a student at Wheaton College she never intended a career in correction. "I'm looking for a job in 1976, and there is a wee bit of a recession and I had an opportunity to work part-time at MCI-Cedar Junction," she said. "Well, gee, Wheaton to Walpole, that's a natural transition."

From those beginnings as an inmate records manager, Dennehy steadily rose through the ranks and served as superintendent of Framingham state prison and as systemwide director of staff development.

Sean P. Murphy can be reached at smurphy@globe.com or 617-929-7849.