Ashbel T. ("A.T.") Wall, II was appointed director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections in March 2000. Prior to his appointment he served in the capacity of Assistant Director of Administration since 1987. He was Interim Director from October 1999 - February 2000.
Director Wall is the first native Rhode Islander and first employee from within departmental ranks to lead the agency in 22 years

As director, Wall oversees a comprehensive correctional agency encompassing every aspect of Rhode Island’s adult correctional system: jails, prisons, probation, parole, transitional housing and home confinement. He is responsible for setting policy direction and supervising all operations for a department that manages about 3500 pretrial and sentenced inmates in eight institutions and 27,000 offenders on probation, parole and community confinement. The budget totals approximately $160 million and its staff complement is 1,600.

In addition to his departmental duties, Director Wall serves on numerous state and national commissions on a wide range of topics including institutional security, prison overcrowding, racial disparity and probation and parole. He is a member of state’s Information Resources Management Board, which sets policy for state’s management information systems development.

He has also served as an expert witness for the Federal District Court in the areas of correctional administration and inmate management (security issues, classification and gangs) for major litigation on conditions of confinement in Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s correctional institutions (1994-1999).

Director Wall worked for two years as a principal policy analyst in the Rhode Island governor’s office handling issues relating to criminal and juvenile justice and corrections; child abuse, neglect and other aspects of child welfare and mental health and retardation. He joined the department in 1987.

Director Wall earned both his undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University. While earning his law degree he worked as a probation officer for the State of Connecticut. Prior to starting his service in Rhode Island, he worked for the District Attorney’s Office for New York County and the Vera Institute of Justice, where he directed the Manhattan Community Service Sentencing Project.