question for correctional officer

[brandy3038]

Hello my name is Brandy and I need to interview a correctional officer for my class. I have not had much luck getting in contact with anyone so I thought I would come here. You guys helped me out a couple of months ago. Here are the questions I would ask..

Let me know if this is not the right place to ask these kinds of questions..

a) “What are the major changes in correctional administration over the last 20 years?”
b) “Why have things changed?”
c) After ascertaining the primary mission of the specific facility, determine how effective the administrator thinks the institution is in performing its role.

I appreciate anyone's comments. I have a paper due and I am supposed to write it in regards to the answers to the questions above..

Have a great day..

[sweamco]

1. This varies depending on what part of the country you are in since many of the decisions made in any type of public service field are influenced by politics.
In General there has been more of an emphasis placed on offender rehabilitation and various forms of treatment. By treatment I mean not only medical and dental, but also mental health programs and teaching job skills such as vocational training and education. In the department I work at an offender is eligible for college classes if the offender is 25 years old or younger. Somce exceptions exist where older offenders are allowed to take college classes as well.
There has also been an increased level of accountability on the part of the corrections staff working within the facilities. One example of this is PREA, which stands for Prison Rape Elimination Act. If you are not familiar with it, it is a Federal law that Former President Bush signed in 2003 (I think it was 03). It came about as a result of an inmate who committed suicide after repeatedly being raped in prison. This particular inmate kept informing prison staff who simply told him something along the lines of "deal with it, you are in prison" This law now makes it possible to hold corrections staff criminally liable if they are aware of sexual assault between inmates and they do not act on it. This is obviously just one example of the changes made and it is a very recent one, but it highlights how the treatment of offenders have been softened.

2 May of the changes have been born out of lawsuits. Also organizations like ACA - American Correctional Association, which serves as a form of regulatory agency for corrections facilities are in place to make sure that certain rules are followed when it comes to offender treatment. It is important to point out that it is voluntary for any organization to fall under ACA. Some states have elected to not be part of ACA, I think California is one of those states but I could be wrong.

3. This varies depending on where you are and who the administrator is, in some part of the country the administrator is referred to as a Warden while in other parts he or she is called a superintendent. One measure to determine the effectiveness of a facility is to look at recidivism. This measures what percentage of offenders come back into prison or jail after having been released at an earlier point (usually within the last three years). This is supposed to measure how many offenders have been "cured" and been able to stay out of the criminal justice system. This is not a very good indicator however since some people are going to be criminals for the rest of their lives, not matter what. Others might still be engaged in criminal behavior but will not get caught.


I hope this helps, if there is anything else you need let me know. If I missed the basis of your questions, let me know then as well and I will try to more properly address your questions.
Good luck on your paper.