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Corrections Policies and Issues 177 CORRECTIONS POLICIES 8 AND ISSUES Prisons do not exist in a vacuum; they are part of a political, social, economic, and moral order. — JAMES B. JACOBS, MACROSOCIOLOGY AND IMPRISONMENT, 1977 INTRODUCTION The most consequential issue in American corrections since the early 1980s has been the extent of use of incarceration itself as a crime control measure. Is America better off in 2003 with more than 2 million behind jail and prison bars than it was in 1980, when that number was about 400,000? We will come back to this issue in the international context in chapter 16 at the end of this book. In this chapter, we will look briefly at several other issues that have dominated policy debates regarding institutional corrections in the past decade. After reading the material in this chapter, you should be familiar with: 1. Professionalization and the accreditation movement in corrections. 2. Prison health care. 3. Responding to population increases. 4. Privatization. 5. Race and imprisonment. PROFESSIONALIZATION AND ACCREDITATION Professionalization and accreditation have become important terms in correc- tional administration in the past two decades. Professionalization has to do with gaining professional status for persons working in corrections, while acc- reditation seeks comparable status for their employing organizations. “Professional” is a commonplace term in America today. In its simplest forms, it means one who follows an occupation as a means of earning a living— a professional baseball player as opposed to someone who just plays ball for ISBN: 0-536-16545-9 the fun of it—or merely someone who is an expert at what he does—such as an experienced plumber. In its higher form, “professional” refers to the learned professions—such as medicine and law—which have high standards of education, training, ethics, and responsibility. It seems odd that people 176 Corrections: The Fundamentals, by Burk Foster. Published by Prentice-Hall. Copyright © 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc. CORRECTIONS POLICIES AND ISSUES 177 working in corrections, a field that has probably ranked lower in public esteem than either baseball or plumbing, might aspire to the same status as doctors or lawyers; how do they propose to make this giant upward bound? The first step is to define the characteristics of the status they are seeking. In her discussion of professionalism in the first edition of Comparative Criminal Justice Systems, Erika Fairchild identified six key indicators: 1. Merit hiring, which has to do with the qualifications and selection process used to bring new employees into the field 2. Training, which consists of preservice, in-service, and supervisory and man- agement training for employees at all levels of the organization 3. Advanced technology, which has to do with the equipment resources avail- able to employees 4. Incorruptibility, which requires employees to avoid selling favors to their clients 5. Equal treatment of citizens, which means avoiding discrimination for or against on the basis of personal or cultural biases 6. Close adherence to the law, which means following the law closely in per- forming one’s daily work1 Some would doubtless criticize Fairchild’s choice of indicators, arguing particularly that preservice education, ethical standards, public service orien- tation, and the public’s view of the occupation’s practitioners should also be on this list. But her six indicators (which were part of a discussion of interna- tional policing standards) do give us a baseline for discussion. Where does cor- rections stand on the professional scale? Corrections is a very large field of work. Well over half a million public em- ployees work in jails and prisons for adults and juveniles; perhaps half that num- ber work in nonsecure supervision alternatives, such as probation and parole, and an untold number as full-time, part-time, and contract private sector workers per- forming corrections-related duties. Would most of these meet Fairchild’s indica- tors? Not by any stretch of the imagination. There is movement in that direction, but several big steps remain between where they are and where they aspire to go. Merit hiring means that most entry-level corrections workers have a high school diploma or GED; degreed positions in administration, probation, or pa- role do attract college graduates in criminal justice and other behavioral sci- ence disciplines, but they also attract many applicants with no prior education in the field. If they can pass a civil service test and have no serious criminal record themselves, they have a good chance of employment. Training for both operational- and management-level positions has in- creased steadily in recent years. Starting with virtually no formal preservice training requirements in most states thirty years ago, in 2000 at least forty-six of the fifty states required an average of six and a half weeks (262 hours) of recruit training, ten months of probationary status, and a week (thirty-eight hours) of annual in-service training for new correctional officers in opera- tional positions.2 Probation and parole staff training requirements varied more widely from state to state in 2000, but forty-six of the fifty states required an average of about four weeks (170 hours) of preservice training and a week (thirty-seven hours) of annual in-service training.3 ISBN: 0-536-16545-9 Corrections: The Fundamentals, by Burk Foster. Published by Prentice-Hall. Copyright © 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc. 178 CHAPTER 8 Advanced technology has surely made an impact on institutional corrections and nonsecure supervision in recent years. The annual meetings of organizations such as the American Correctional Association and the American Jail Association seem dominated by technology. They have become huge trade shows for com- panies selling the latest in corrections technology and equipment. Modular jail cells, electrified fences, drug testing kits, computerized control monitors, flame- resistant pillows, electronic monitoring bracelets, laptops, indestructible cell furniture—a jail or prison manager can find anything he needs, from a single plastic razor to a fully equipped 1,000-bed prison, for sale at these meetings. As managers search for ways to improve monitoring and security and hold down personnel costs, the application of technology in corrections has advanced dra- matically, sometimes to the point that equipment receives more emphasis than staff or that technology is emphasized while human deficiencies are ignored. Fairchild’s last three indicators—incorruptibility, equal treatment of citizens, and adherence to law—are more difficult to evaluate in their correctional context. One need not search very hard to find examples of corruption, discrimination, and illegal conduct in corrections. Indeed, the front page of the leading corrections Website, www.corrections.com, lists links to recent news articles about misconduct by corrections staff, operational and administrative, some of it resulting in litigation. But there is a general sense among people who have worked in corrections for thirty or forty years that both the ethical standards of corrections staff and the le- gal framework within which they operate are much stronger today than they were a generation ago. Not all of this advance has been voluntary; much of it has to do with federal and state court orders demanding higher standards of account- ability in care, custody, and control. But over time, however, these standards, once set from outside, have become internalized: corrections workers now seek their own standards rather than those set for them by outsiders. The leading advocate of corrections professionalism today is the American Correctional Association (ACA), which originated in the National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline meeting in Cincinnati in 1870. Known as the National Prison Association and the American Prison Association until it adopted its present name in 1954, the ACA now represents the pro- fessional interests of the corrections field. The ACA’s Professional Development Department takes its direction from Article 7 of the 1870 Declaration of Principles: Special training, as well as high qualities of head and heart, is required to make a good prison or reformatory officer. Then only will the administration of public pun- ishment become scientific, uniform and successful, when it is raised to the dignity of a profession, and men are specially trained for it, as they are for other pursuits.4 The Professional Development Department consists of four sections: 1. Grants, Contracts, and Cooperative Agreements 2. Conference Programming 3. Training and Technical Assistance ISBN: 0-536-16545-9 4. Educational and Training Products This last section includes a range of products used in individual or group training, including correspondence courses, lesson plans, videos, workbooks, and Internet-based instruction.5 Corrections: The Fundamentals, by Burk Foster. Published by Prentice-Hall. Copyright © 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc. CORRECTIONS POLICIES AND ISSUES 179 Since 1999, this section has also provided a professional certification pro- gram leading to four different levels of certification: 1. Certified Correctional Executive—for individuals at the highest institu- tional level 2. Certified Correctional Manager—for those who work with other staff and have some contact with inmates 3. Certified Correctional Supervisor—designed for individuals who work with both staff and inmates 4. Certified Correctional Officers—for
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