Lenard Vare has over 28 years of practical experience in inmate management in both jails and prisons. He was a senior warden in the state of Nevada for four years before serving as a jail administrator in the state of California for 10 years. After retiring from public service, he worked as the Chief Operations Officer over an international electronic monitoring company which provided treatment and day reporting centers to various sheriffs and probation agencies. Lenard has investigated several jail and prison death and homicide cases and conducted policy reviews and security audits and provided comprehensive reports and recommendations to agencies on addressing various issues from dealing with suicidal inmates to reducing gang violence in jails and prisons. Additionally, Lenard served as an investigator for the California State University, Sacramento conducting numerous personnel investigations as well as Federal Title IX investigations.

Lenard’s expertise is in inmate classification, program design, high-risk inmate transportation, organizational development and training law enforcement and correctional personnel in topics related to inmate management. He has served as a criminal investigator and hostage/crisis negotiator, supervised fugitive recovery teams, conducted internal affairs investigations, and operated community-based correctional facilities. He has also served as criminal justice faculty teaching courses at the undergraduate level at local colleges. He is a certified jail manager and a certified project management professional.

Recent cases in which Lenard has been retained as an expert have involved – A jail riot and subsequent staff response resulting in a class action lawsuit; Inmate suicides inside a jail; Inmate death following an arrest and use of force action; Inmate death in a case involving someone with mental health issues as well as a history of substance abuse; Litigation against a private federal prison in prisoner death; Lawsuit related to classification and placement of female inmates with limited services and access to programs. Cases in which Lenard has been consulted for case review have included – Shackling of pregnant inmates during transportation and court appearances; Use of force on inmates; Use of Taser; Classification and placement of inmates; Employee termination lawsuit following a finding of improper conduct.

Lenard has been consulted on several jail suicide and in-custody death cases. He recently served as an expert on three in-custody homicide cases.

Lenard served as the past vice president of the California Jail Programs Association and has been consulted by many agencies.

Education:

• Master of Justice Management, University of Nevada, Reno
• BS, Criminal Justice Administration, University of Phoenix, Reno

Certifications: 

• Certified Jail Manager American Jail Association, Hagerstown, MD
• SHRM Certification training San Jose State University, CA (Society for Human Resource Mgmt.)
• PC832 Training and Certification California POST, CA

Additional Information:

Publication – Of Elephants and Men

Elephant Keepers: Reflections of a Prison Warden. To learn more about the book, please visit www.elephantkeepers.net