New Warden Appointed For Sussex Correctional Institution
Sussex Correctional Institution will get a new Warden.
Scott Ceresini succeeds SCI Warden Truman Mears, who retired last month after 33 years with the Delaware Department of Correction. Mears had been warden at SCI since January 2020.
Ceresini has been serving as Kent County Community Corrections Warden and is an 18-year DOC veteran.
“Warden Ceresini is a proven leader who is committed to meeting our core safety and security mission while also strongly supporting the healthcare treatment, educational and vocational training, and facility programming that helps achieve our rehabilitation mission and drives offender reentry success,” Chief of Prisons Shane Troxler said.
“Congratulations to Warden Ceresini for earning this promotion and embracing the opportunity to lead and support SCI’s dedicated officers and correctional employees and collaborate with treatment, programming and community partners to meet the needs of our incarcerated population and drive our dual public safety and reentry mission,” Deputy Chief of Prisons Paul Shavack said.
The Department of Correction provided this biography of new SCI Warden Scott Ceresini:
Warden Ceresini, an 18-year DOC veteran, joined the DOC as a Correctional Officer in 2004 after serving in the United States Army for six years. After completing Academy training he served assignments at Howard R. Young Correctional Institution and James T. Vaughn Correctional Center before being promoted to Corporal with a posting to the Sussex Boot Camp where he served as a Drill Instructor. He was promoted to Correctional Sergeant in 2008 and Correctional Lieutenant (2012) at the Sussex Community Corrections Center (SCCC). During his tenure at SCCC he served in supervisory positions, including as an officer in charge of the work release center and violation of probation center, a shift commander, Security Threat Group Coordinator, and as American Correctional Association (ACA) and Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Compliance Manager. Ceresini continued to rise through the ranks, with promotions to Correctional Staff Lieutenant (2017) at Morris Community Corrections Center, where he served as a Unit Commander and the Security Threat Group Coordinator, and participated in the Bureau of Community Corrections policy committee. In July, 2019, he was promoted to Deputy Warden at Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution and in February, 2021 he was promoted to Warden of Kent County Community Corrections. Kent County Community Corrections operates the Community Corrections Treatment Center (CCTC), the statewide treatment facility opened in December, 2020 for inmates sentenced to Level IV substance use disorder treatment, as well as all Kent County Level IV community work crews. The CCTC administers DOC’s “Road 2 Recovery” Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment program, which was redesigned in 2020 and consolidated for Level IV male offenders statewide at one site to standardize program delivery, consolidate treatment staff, and modernize outdated treatment practices. The CCTC reflects a residential treatment format that offers a mixture of programming and treatment space, staff work and meeting spaces in an open design that is conducive to DOC’s SUD cognitive community requirements.
Warden Ceresini has completed specialized training programs, including Train the Trainer, Firearms Instructor, Working with Women, the Delaware State Police Interview and Interrogation Techniques and Sex Crimes Investigations courses, and has attended over 100 hours of professional development in Security Threat Groups. He has been recognized as part of the 2015 DOC Team of the Year, has received multiple Bureau-level awards, and received two Special Forces Awards as a Security Threat Group Coordinator.
