Chapter 11- Corrections Issues and Practices

Should Juvneiles Serve Life Without Parole? In 2005 the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute a person who committed a capital crime while younger than 18 years of age. Then again in 2009 the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning whether or not it is also unconstitutional to sentence teens to life without the possibility of parole. Then in May of 2010 the supreme court decided that it was cruel and unusual punishment to commit non homicide crimes from being sentenced to life without parole.

Sexual and Physical Violence Sexual victimization in prisons- while there are no good statistics to know the true extent of the problem of sexual assaults in prison it is safe to say that the prisoner’s sexual needs and interests do not necessarily stop at the front gate of the prison. One recent study examined physical conceptual victimizations that were reported by nearly 7000 inmates and found that nearly one third of the inmates had been physically assaulted at least once and approximate 3% reported at least one sexual assault.

Prison Rape Elimination Act In September of 2003 President Bush signed into law the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. As you can see in table 11.1 on page 253 of your text the bureau of justice statistics survey of Federal and state prisons, as well as local jails, found the number of allegations of sexual violence actually increased by 21% following enactment of the new law. Some evidence suggests that the reason for the increase may have resulted from the new definitions being adopted as well as improved reporting by correctional authorities.

Hostage Taking- Response teams Traditional CRT’s- this is a team composed of staff from all job specialties who trained in riot control formations and use of defense of equipment. Armed CRT’s- if the emergency escalates to the point where a staff member or inmates life are in imminent danger the prison can have a specially trained team they can respond with deadly force when necessary.  Tactical Teams- these are the most highly trained and skilled emergency response staff.

Mentally Ill Offenders During the 1970s there was a movement in order to try and deinstitutionalize criminal inmates and offenders suffering from mental illness from your state mental institutions. The problem is that jails and prisons are not the proper locations to deal with mental illness. It remains that one of the biggest concern that our prison administrators have is to develop and maintain a viable program to treat and control these types of inmates.

Three Strikes Laws Between 1993 and 1995, 24 states and the federal government enacted new habitual offender laws that have been termed “three-strikes”—laws that required the state courts to assign enhanced periods of incarceration to those persons who were convicted of a serious criminal offense on three or more separate occasions. Since their inception, three-strikes laws have varied widely in their content.

Inmate Classification Security needs are classified in terms of the number and types of architectural barriers that must be placed between the inmates and the outside world to ensure that they will not escape and can be controlled. Custody assignments determine the level of supervision and types of privileges an inmate will have. Housing needs can involve the grouping of inmates into three broad categories: heavy—victimizers, light—victims, and moderate—neither intimidated by the first group nor abusers of the second. Program classification involves using interview and testing data to determine where the newly arrived inmate should be placed in work, training, and treatment programs; these are designed to help the prisoner make a successful return to society.

Drug Use in Prisons: Pennsylvania Plan Inmates caught with drugs were to be criminally prosecuted, and those who tested positive (using hair testing) were to serve disciplinary custody time. Highly sensitive drug detection equipment was employed to detect drugs that visitors might try to smuggle into the prison, to inspect packages arriving in the mail, and to detect drugs that correctional staff might try to bring in. New policies were issued for inmate movement and visitation, and a new phone system was installed to randomly monitor inmates’ calls.

Treating the Drug Problem Institutions tend to use limited criteria (such as any lifetime drug use, possession, drug sales, trafficking) to determine the need for treatment, leading to a lack of treatment of a large portion of the prison population that has abused substances; conversely, many inmates who legitimately need treatment may be excluded for reasons unrelated to their substance abuse problems. Second, it is difficult to find and recruit qualified and experienced staff in the remote areas where prisons are often located. In addition, counselors who are well suited for community based treatment programs will not necessarily be effective in the prison setting.

The Move to Privatization Today 31 states have privately run prisons operating within their states that hold nearly 112,000 inmates, which is 7.2% of the nearly 1.6 million total inmates held in those states. Proponents have stated, and some recent studies have shown, that private prisons can do more with less and actually have less of a recidivism rate to boot. However, one of the reasons that has been cited for the slower rate of prisoner recidivism is that often these private entities can pick and choose the inmates they get (they may not get the hardcore prisoners, for example), who have a tendency to re-offend at a much higher rate.

Intermediate Sanctions The demand for prison space has created a reaction throughout the corrections industry. With the cost of prison construction now exceeding $250,000 per cell in maximum- security institutions, cost-saving alternatives are becoming more attractive, if not essential. A real alternative to incarceration must have three elements to be effective: it must incapacitate offenders enough so that it is possible to interfere with their lives and activities to make committing a new offense extremely difficult, it must be unpleasant enough to deter offenders from wanting to commit new crimes, and it has to provide real and credible protection for the community.

Commonly Used Intermediate Sanctions Intensive Probation and Parole House Arrest Electronic Monitoring Boot Camps Day Reporting Centers