"We just make it a point to never discuss the criminal
justice system at breakfast or dinner."...Rissie Owens

Hmmm...Really???

Former TDCJ Employee Moves into
Role of Parole Board Officer

Rissie Owens seems to be constantly on the move. In fact, during 20 years of marriage, she moved her household 17 times as her husband, Ed, now deputy executive director of TDCJ, was transferred from place to place on his way up through the security ranks of the state prison system.

And even though the Owens' are now settled in Huntsville, Rissie keeps a suitcase packed for weekly trips to Austin where she serves as the presiding officer for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. "On Highway 290," Owens joked when asked where she spends most of her time.

Owens, 44, was appointed by Governor Rick Perry to chair the 18-member Parole Board in September after serving six years as a Board member in Huntsville. She usually spends at least two days in Austin each week to take care of business there before returning home to vote on parole cases before the three-member panel she supervises at the Huntsville office, one of seven TBPP offices around the state. Rissie Owens, Chairman of the Board of Pardons and Parole speaks with Parole Board Administrator Keith Hottle.

Photo By Jene RobbinsIn February, however, the 18-member Board will be trimmed to seven members appointed by the governor with the presiding officer taking on a managerial role, including the hiring of 11 commissioners who will be regular state employees responsible for interviewing prisoners up for parole consideration. "Today, the job of the presiding officer is one of coordinating the activities of the Board," Owens said. "Under the House bill, it's more of an administrative position. The presiding officer is actually responsible for hiring all of the parole commissioners and the staff." The legislation calls for the terms of all current Board members to expire in January 2004. The seven members appointed by the governor will serve staggered terms ranging from two to six years. "I think it's a great management tool the bill provides for a smaller body to manage," said Owens, adding that she is interested in being appointed as one of the seven members who will shape Board policy. "I am very appreciative to Governor Perry for having the confidence in my abilities to provide leadership and direction to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles," she said. "As Board chair, I will continue to refine our processes to maintain the public's safety. I also think it is important to strengthen collaborative relationships with other criminal justice entities. I have some big shoes to fill and some high expectations to address, but this is what I have been preparing for. It's been very interesting. It's a challenge, but I look fo rward to the challenges and welcome them."

Born and raised in Bryan, Owens attended Sam Houston State University in Huntsville with thoughts of becoming a teacher like her mother. But she changed her major to criminal justice late in her freshman year. "Criminal justice was kind of new in the early 80s," she said. "I began to hear about the criminal justice program at Sam Houston, and at the time I was there, there were a lot of jobs in criminal justice." Owens, who later earned a master's degree in psychology from the University of Houston at Clear Lake, met her husband at SHSU, marrying him in 1983. At the time, she was working as a case manager with Brazos County MHMR in Bryan while Ed worked at the Pack Unit near Navasota. But when he was transferred to the Ferguson Unit near Midway in 1984, she went to work for TDCJ as a mental health coordinator in the Social Services Department. She went on to work as a grievance coordinator and field coordinator before following her husband to Galveston upon his promotion to senior warden at TDCJ's hospital unit. Because policy prohibited her from working directly under her husband, Owens left TDCJ to work as a probation officer for Galveston County Adult Probation. Two years later, her husband was transferred back to Navasota. But for once, she didn't pack up the household and make another move.

"I didn't move to Navasota because I was in the process of trying to complete my graduate degree," she said. "At the end of the semester I was planning to move and then he was transferred to Amarillo. So then I moved to Amarillo." During the two years her husband served as senior warden of the Clements Unit there, Owens worked as a drug prevention specialist for the Amarillo Independent School District. Then with Ed's promotion to regional director in 1995, it was back to Huntsville where she worked as an associate school psycholog ist with the local school district for two years prior to her appointment to the Parole Board in September 1997. Owens said changing jobs with each move hasn't hampered her career. "It really hasn't," she said. "I was very fortunate that because of my work experience and/or my education I was able to secure employment," she said. And while they share the same house with their 16-year-old son, Owens said she and her husband work in different worlds.

"It's really kind of easy to keep it separate," she said about the business of TBPP and that of TDCJ. "I do my job and it's my job and he does his job and it's his job. I don't try to tell him how to run the criminal justice system and he doesn't tell me how to run the Parole Board. We just make it a point to never discuss the criminal justice system at breakfast or dinner. And it works."

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