Hostage negotiation specialist named new superintendent at Muncy correction facility
By MARK MARONEY mmaroney@sungazette.comArticle Photos
Marirosa Lamas, 41, an 18-year state Department of Corrections veteran, is a professionally certified and trained hostage negotiator. She succeeds Dawn Chamberlain, who will serve as superintendent of SCI Pittsburgh. Lamas’ appointment was effective Sunday.
Lamas, a native of Puerto Rico, spoke with the Sun-Gazette on Tuesday.
“I’ve always been fascinated by that aspect (hostage negotiation) of the Department of Corrections,” she said.
“Some are great listeners, some are great speakers,” she said of what makes a good negotiator.
To complete hostage negotiation coursework, she received training from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, as well as taking required classes.
But Lamas said she has not practiced hostage negotiation for four or five years.
Her immediate goal, she said, is to operate a secure, safe and humane facility that allows opportunities for both staff and inmates.
“If we provide inmates with real job training, we enhance their opportunities for employability and, in turn, enhance parole success,” she said.
Many of the facility’s slightly more than 2,500 inmates will return to life in a community, and it remains imperative the prison provides them the best tools for success.
Lamas, who lived in Rio Piedras, a city just outside of San Juan, said she is proud to be the first Hispanic superintendent of a corrections facility in Pennsylvania.
She moved to the U.S. when she was 7 years old and speaks fluent Spanish.
Her hobbies include keeping a healthy lifestyle.
“I enjoy exercise,” she said. “It keeps one very stable.”
She plans to run on the many trails in Lycoming County and is the “proud mother of two great dogs.”
“Marirosa is an energetic, dynamic corrections professional with a strong commitment to operating a secure, safe and humane prison,” Corrections Secretary Jeffrey A. Beard said. “I am confident that she will be a trustworthy and charismatic leader for SCI Muncy.”
Lamas said her management style will be to “delegate authority and empower managers beneath me.”
“I had great mentors who empowered me and allowed me to believe,” she said. “They saw Marirosa in spite and despite herself. My mother told me to balance that with humility and humble yourself.”
Lamas began her corrections career as a counselor at Camp Hill in 1990. While working at that prison, she also served as unit manager. In 2004, she served as staff assistant to the regional deputy secretary at the department’s headquarters.
In 2005, she was named deputy superintendent for centralized services at Frackville. In 2006, she assumed the same duties at Rockview.
As superintendent, Lamas will oversee the overall operation of the facility, including security, treatment, personnel, training, budget, food service, health care, maintenance and safety. She will be responsible for 553 employees and more than 1,250 inmates.
She received a bachelor’s degree in administration of justice from Penn State and holds a master’s degree in administration of justice from Shippensburg University.
Lamas is a member of the Pennsylvania Prison Wardens Association and the American Correctional Association.
SCI Muncy originally was opened in 1920 as the Muncy Industrial Home, a training school for female offenders between the ages of 16 and 30. Incorporated into the Bureau of Correction in 1953, SCI Muncy is a close-security prison that serves as the reception center for all female inmates.
It houses all of the state’s female capital case inmates.
