Washington State Department of Corrections
law enforcement agency
The Washington State Department of Corrections (WADOC) is a department of the government of the State of Washington. WADOC is responsible for administering adult corrections programs operated by the state. This includes state correctional institutions and programs for people supervised in the community. Its headquarters are in Tumwater, Washington.
History
The modern Washington Department of Corrections is a relatively young state agency. Agency oversight of correctional institutions in Washington State went through several transitions during the 20th century before the WADOC's creation in 1981.
Prior to the 1970s, state correctional facilities were managed by the Washington Department of Institutions. governor Daniel J. Evans consolidated the Department of Institutions, Department of Public Assistance & Vocational Rehabilitation, and other related departments into the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) in the 1970s.
On July 1, 1981, the Washington State Legislature transferred the administration of adult correctional institutions from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, Division of Adult Corrections (DSHS) to the newly created Washington State Department of Corrections as part of the 1981 Corrections Reform Act.
Organizational structure
The Washington Department of Corrections organizational structure includes six major divisions:
Women’s Prisons
Men’s Prisons
Community Corrections
Administrative Operations
Health Services
Reentry
Each division has an assistant secretary who oversees the division's operations.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Washington State Department of Corrections” is law enforcement agency. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Washington, State and Department, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “law enforcement agency” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q861435. VIAF identifies the subject as 147278907. The Library of Congress control number is n82104806. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Washington State Department of Corrections”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Washington State Department of Corrections primary sources, Washington State Department of Corrections archive and Washington research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Washington State Department of Corrections”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Washington State Department of Corrections” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.