Colette Peters
Director, Oregon Department of Corrections
Colette S. Peters has served as Director of the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) since February 2012. She has ultimate oversight of an agency with 4,700 employees; a biennial budget of $2 billion; and responsibility for managing 14,700 incarcerated adults in 14 prisons across the state. Ms. Peters played a crucial role in Oregon’s justice reinvestment effort, which reduced the prison population and avoided opening additional institutions.
Under Ms. Peters’ leadership, DOC enrolled in the Amend at University of California San Francisco and developed the “Oregon Way.” The goal is to improve employee health and wellness, and reduce the use of segregation, by transforming environments inside correctional facilities to be more normal and humane. The program has focused efforts on helping the adults in custody positively change their lives and become better neighbors.
Ms. Peters holds a master’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Colorado in Denver, and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the College of Saint Benedict in Saint Joseph, Minnesota.