POLICY NUMBER: 3.14-3 DOC CODE OF ETHICS AND CONDUCT

b. Personal Relationships

(1) Staff shall not discuss Departmental operations with the offender population or within hearing range of the offender population or visitors. Staff shall not permit access to Departmental reports, policies, orders, or memoranda, unless such information is necessary in order for the offender to understand what is expected of him/her or is deemed appropriate by the Director or designee for distribution to the offender population.

(2) Staff is forbidden from directing offenders to perform duties or provide services which are not designated by the Department as official work assignments.

(3) Offenders are permitted in staff office areas under supervision and only in the course of official Departmental business or to complete work assignments. Offenders shall not be allowed to linger or remain in these areas after the conclusion of this business.

(4) Staff shall make no attempt to influence any outside agency on behalf of any offender by writing letters, testifying, or having any form of contact on behalf of an offender unless approved in writing by the Director, an Assistant Director, a Warden, the Administrator of Probation and Parole or Administrator of Community Confinement.

(5) Staff shall not knowingly give or receive compensation, gifts, or favors to or from offenders or from the immediate families, visitors, representatives, or business associates of offenders. Staff shall provide their immediate supervisor with written reports documenting any attempt to offer such compensation, gifts, or favors.

(6) Staff shall not knowingly give or receive compensation, gifts, or favors to or from former offenders, or from the immediate families, visitors, representatives, or business associates of former offenders, which are in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of their duties and responsibilities as prescribed in the laws of the State of Rhode Island, or which in any way undermine the goals and objectives of this Code of Ethics and Conduct.

(7) Staff shall not establish associations or relationships which bring discredit to the Department or which compromise their ability to perform their jobs. These relationships shall include, but not be limited to, visitors or family members of offenders.

(8) Staff shall provide their immediate supervisor with written notification of any personal associations or relationships with any current offenders or visitors to current offenders of the Department with whom the staff members have contact on the job or over whom the staff members have control or decision making authority. The immediate supervisor is required to relay the information to the appropriate authority.

(9) Staff is prohibited from dating, marrying, or otherwise developing or engaging in romantic, physical, or sexual relationships with offenders of the Department with whom the staff members have contact on the job, or over whom the staff members have control or decision making authority. Staff has an affirmative duty to report to his /her immediate supervisor any dating, marriage, romantic, physical or sexual relationship with a former offender who has been under the department’s supervision within the past two (2) years. The duty arises at the time the staff member discovers the connection. The immediate supervisor is required to relay the information to the appropriate authority.

(10) Staff is prohibited from dating, marrying or otherwise developing or engaging in romantic, physical or sexual relationships with individuals on the visiting list of an inmate with whom the staff members have contact on the job, or over whom the staff members have control or decision making authority. Staff has an affirmative duty to report to his/her immediate supervisor any dating, marriage, romantic, physical or sexual relationship with an individual on an inmate visiting list when the inmate has been incarcerated within the past two (2) years. The duty arises at the time the staff member discovers the connection. The immediate supervisor is required to relay the information to the appropriate authority.

(11) RIDOC maintains a zero tolerance for staff sexual misconduct/harassment toward offenders.