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Director's Office

The director's office in Helena provides leadership and management support to all Montana Department of Corrections facilities, programs and divisions. It also leads the department's effort to effectively communicate with other agencies, the public and victims of crime.

Director Ferriter

Director Mike Ferriter

Mike Ferriter, a corrections veteran with 29 years in the profession, became director for the Montana Department of Corrections in July 2006 upon appointment by Gov. Brian Schweitzer. After serving as administrator of the Adult Community Corrections Division since 1995, Ferriter oversees an agency with 1,200 employees, an annual budget of about $135 million and responsibility for more than 12,000 offenders.

Ferriter, 54, began his corrections career as a Youth Court officer in 1977 and later was parole officer, director of the Missoula Prerelease Center, probation and parole chief, and chief of the Community Corrections Bureau in the Corrections Department.

During the past decade, Ferriter has helped direct the department’s growing emphasis on community corrections programs. He has played a significant role in the addition of hundreds of prerelease center beds, significant increases in probation and parole officers, and implementation of two six-month intensive DUI treatment programs in Warm Springs and Glendive, with an 82 percent success rate.

Ferriter was instrumental in launching the Sanction, Treatment, Assessment, Revocation and Transition center at Warm Springs in late 2005. This 80-bed facility has been able to divert from prison 77 percent of offenders admitted to the program since it started. The program handles offenders who have committed serious violations of the conditions of their parole, conditional release, prerelease center placement or probation.

Ferriter also oversaw establishment of prerelease centers in Helena and Bozeman, the creation of meth treatment centers in Lewistown and Boulder, opening of the Riverside Youth Correctional Center in Boulder, creation of a juvenile female transition program, birth of the Juvenile Delinquency Intervention Program, and relocation of the boot camp.

He was involved in establishing peace officers certified training for probation and parole officers, obtaining authority for officers to carry firearms, and installation of parole officers in every adult correctional facility.

A Butte native, Ferriter graduated from Butte Central High School and earned a bachelor's degree in vocational rehabilitation from Eastern Montana College – now Montana State University-Billings – in 1977. He also has completed all the course work for a master’s degree in public administration at the University of Montana.

He is a member of the national Interstate Compact Commission, a member of the National Institute of Corrections-sponsored Community Corrections Executive Network, past member of the American Probation and Parole Officers Association, a regional field training coordinator for the NIC, a member of the Governor’s Homeless Council, and an ethics instructor for probation and parole officers and boot camp drill instructors at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy.

Ferriter and his wife, Betty, have five children: Erin, Mark, Colleen, Mike and Kevin.