Henson assumes helm at correctional complex

Bryan Henson

Emphasis on returning to the community could prevent inmates at Western Kentucky Correctional from committing another crime after they are released.
Bryan Henson, promoted to warden at the complex last week, said corrections throughout the state will focus on making helping inmates reenter the community.
Henson succeeded Becky Pancake who had been warden since 2005.
“Ultimately, we have to go back to our mission to protect the public — protect the inmate population and protect our staff,” Henson said. “My goal is to do those things as well as make it as pleasant a living and working environment as it can be for all inmates and staff.”
Henson, who started his career as a correctional officer at Kentucky State Penitentiary in 1989, had been a deputy warden since 2005.
“Bryan Henson is an example of someone who has worked his way up through the ranks of corrections, and shown he has what it takes to lead,” said Commissioner LaDonna Thompson. “He serves as an inspiration to those men and women we have serving as corrections officers today. With his familiarity of the region and his knowledge of the institution, he is an excellent match as warden.”
Henson plans to continue the programs Pancake started as well as those that have been on going.
Corrections leaders recognize that more emphasis must be placed on reaching out to inmates’ families, Henson said. Often when an inmate returns home, he falls into old patterns and “gets back into the same crowd and into the same habits as before.” Then before long he is back in the correctional system.
“So I think Commissioner Thompson wants to put more emphasis on actually working with the families,” Henson said, noting several programs such as Malachi Dads which works with the children of inmates. “We do the ‘Returning Hearts,’ which we’ve got coming up on Oct. 3, in which we bring the children in, and it reestablishes the relationship between father and son or father and daughter.
“That’s all part of breaking the cycle of crime,” Henson said, noting that in some families, granddad was in prison, dad’s in prison, the child is coming up and that’s all he knows. “It’s almost like it’s okay for to go to prison — it’s not a negative thing.”
The idea of Returning Hearts is to allow the inmate to be a father to his child even though he is in prison, Henson said. The father can say to the child, “This is not where you need to be. I’ve made a mistake. ... And I don’t want you coming in here.”
Henson said more emphasis is going to be placed on “that whole big picture of programs, not just for the inmate, but also for the inmate’s ties to the community.”
Henson is a Grand Rivers native who still lives in Livingston County with his wife, the former Sherry Love, and their identical twin daughters, Kinsee and Kelsee, 18-year-oldfreshmen at their parents’ alma mater, Murray State University.
He has a degree in criminal justice and psychology from MSU and has learned the correctional system from the ground up, having completed an internship at the penitentiary while in college.