The Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) has selected a new director to head the Northern Parole Region (NPR), overseeing the 10 regional parole offices and the more than 2,500 offenders paroled in the northern half of the state. This area includes Barton County.
Having served as acting director of the region for the past several months, Mark Keating has been selected to fill that role permanently, the KDOC announced Thursday, September 19, 2013. Keating assumed the duties of Director Peggy Lero when she was named to the state’s Prisoner Review Board in May. The main office of the NPR is located in Topeka.
Kansas’ Parole Services supervises offenders released from Kansas correctional facilities on parole, post-release supervision or conditional release. The division also manages offenders released from other states, who are on probation or parole, and for whom Kansas has accepted supervision responsibility.
Keating has been employed by the KDOC since 1999, having worked in the Kansas City Parole Office, as well as having served as Director of Sex Offender Management in the KDOC central office in Topeka. Before filling the vacancy left by Lero, Keating was the deputy director of the Northern Parole Region.
A graduate of Shawnee Mission South High School and Baylor University in Waco, Texas, Keating holds a master’s degree in Criminology from Indiana State University.