Staff handlers and canines will receive appropriate training. Canines will be provided appropriate housing, food, medical care, and exercise. Procedures required in this Program Statement are applicable to pretrial and holdover inmates. Regional Directors, in coordination with the Assistant Director, Correctional Programs Division, have the authority to identify one institution within each region to assign a canine unit. A canine unit is composed of, at a minimum, one canine handler and one dog with multiple abilities, such as tracking and narcotics detection.
Captains have management responsibility for a canine unit.
Actual program coordination shall not be delegated below the level of a GS-11 Lieutenant. Requests for the canine unit's assistance outside the assigned institution must be approved in advance by the Warden or Acting Warden. The Warden of each institution with an authorized canine unit shall select one handler for each canine. The handler shall only work with the dog originally assigned and should ordinarily not be assigned collateral duties. Another handler may be assigned to feed and service the kennel area if the primary handler is not available.