But at the highest echelon of prison policy-making, the office of the secretary of public safety, the numbers are quite different. There, the eight-person staff of Secretary Jerry Kilgore is all white.
Women are generally well represented throughout the secretariats.
Overall, about 16 percent of the staffs of Allen and his Cabinet are minorities. At a comparable point in the administration of former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected African-American governor, the figure was about 30 percent. Under former Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, who served from 1986 to 1990, it was 24 percent. Given the makeup of the prison population, perhaps the most noticeable absence of minorities is in the public safety office. Kilgore's predecessor, O. Randolph Rollins, who served in the Wilder administration, declined to criticize current hiring policies because the office has few employees.