NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Gov. Bill Lee has put Christopher Hansen in charge of the Tennessee Department of Correction on an interim basis, handing the state prison system to the official who already runs its probation and parole arm.
The appointment took effect immediately when the governor announced it Friday afternoon. Hansen will keep his current job as assistant commissioner of community supervision while he leads the full department.
The opening came after Frank Strada stepped down as commissioner in October, weeks after the state botched the Sept. 30 execution of Christa Pike. At Lee’s request, the attorney general’s office has brought in Ed Stanton, a former U.S. attorney, to look independently at how the department handled the court-ordered sentence.
In his announcement, Lee described Hansen as a longtime public servant whose knowledge of the department makes him a strong fit to lead it through the transition.
Hansen joined the department in 2023. His community supervision division has about 1,100 employees statewide, and he has overseen the rollout of TN-STEPS, the department’s evidence-based model for supervising people on probation and parole across Tennessee.
Before coming to Tennessee, he was chief probation officer and director of the probation department in Solano County, California, and later the top federal probation officer in Nevada. He also worked in Florida for the federal probation office, the state corrections department and the campus police at the University of South Florida.
Nova Southeastern University awarded him a doctorate in justice leadership; his undergraduate and graduate degrees are from South Florida. He and his family, whose ties to the state run through his Tennessee-raised wife, settled in Mount Juliet in 2023.
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