A new Strategic Offender Management System (SOMS) will help provide assurance to the Board of Parole Hearings that all laudatory letters, chronos and certificates are legitimate, according to Community Partnership Manager Steve Emrick.
“SOMS will also confirm regular attendance in programs,” Emrick explained. “Inmate participants need to make sure that they sign their names on the SOMS sign-in sheet for every group and program. Staff sponsors will be responsible for entering the permanent attendance history into SOMS for every inmate in each program.” This process will assure that there will be an accurate attendance record for each program that will be included in inmates’ C-Files.
“Also, every general and laudatory document or chrono must have, at the very least, the inmate’s CDCR number, last name and the date along with signature(s) of the staff or volunteer sponsor,” Emrick added, “especially when it comes to certificates and letters. This will assure that the document will be scanned into the correct C-File.”
After providing inmate participants with a hard copy, staff sponsors must turn in a duplicate copy to records for scanning. Volunteer sponsors can drop them off at the Community Partnerships office with a note that they must be scanned into inmate C-Files.