By Jon Johnson
Eastern Arizona Courier
GRAHAM COUNTY — It has been said that a jail is only as good as the people who run it. To that end, the administrators of the Graham County Jail have stressed their desire for those in charge to receive the best possible training.
Jail Lt. Tavini Sulusi is an example of what the jail projects its leaders to be. Sulusi was one of 36 graduates from the 11th Class of the National Jail Leadership Command Academy. The academy was held Nov. 4-9 at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. The academy is run by the American Jail Association in collaboration with the Correctional Management Institute of Texas. The academy is equivalent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Academy but for jails, according to Graham County Jail Commander Tim Graver.
Graham County Sheriff P.J. Allred said he was glad Sulusi was able to attend the training because he is one of the jail’s highly performing officers.
“We’re a small county, but we try to send our people to the best training they can possibly get,” Allred said.
The graduates of the academy were made up of corrections officers from 13 states and one international student from Tasmania, Australia. Attendees came from jails with as few as 28 beds to more than 9,800 beds.
Participants earned 80 hours of training credit toward their Certified Jail Manager requirements. Sulusi was granted a scholarship for the training after he was nominated by four Arizona counties. He was one of two attendees from Arizona. Sulusi was also recently received an award recognition from the Arizona Detention Academy.
“He’s been recognized at the conference two or three times for outstanding leadership and for being a team player,” Graver said. “He’s been a huge help to me, (and) I know he’s a huge help to P.J. when I’m gone.”
Graver said he believes in promoting from within and is grooming Sulusi to be his replacement when he retires. He said Sulusi confided that his favorite class during the training was a legacy of leadership class that talked about preparing the people underneath you to take your spot when you leave.
“I told them (the Graham County Board of Supervisors) when I came here that I’d be the last person that the county would have to go outside to bring in,” Graver said.
“He (Sulusi) does a good job,” Allred said. “He’s very dependable, and he’s pretty quiet. He doesn’t say a whole lot, but he doesn’t need to most of the time . . . He’s easy to get along with.”
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