Correctional centers have always existed for the benefit of both the society and criminals. This has been the general notion held by many individuals in the world, and more specifically, the United States of America.
The hope that, once existed, these centers do make one a better person is gradually fading away, evident in the research one conducted on these systems. It emerges that prisons have now turned out to be isolation centers rather than rehabilitative centers. Criminals are always jailed in order to keep them away from societies. Despite correctional programming being popular in prisons, its face continues to change owing to the alarming rapid growth in inmate population. Long sentences and shifts in composition of inmate population keep on causing new challenges to prison administrators.
The voice of people really counts. Americans strongly believe the mechanisms of deterrence and incapacitation make incarceration an effective method of crime rate reduction. Consequently, more prisons, tougher laws with long prison sentences served under extremely harsh conditions are still being advocated for. On the other hand, correctional programs are also judged on their effectiveness individually, based on the societal safety. Strict economic backing also contributes to the prison boom. Americans realize that they cannot afford to cater for the desired prison capacity due to incarceration being deer.
Due to this, cost efficiency and exercising economical ways are being stressed upon in all aspects of administration and justice for criminals. Prison administrators are gradually becoming obsessed in their determination to cut down incarceration costs. Many questions still linger in head concerning these correctional centers. What do people expect at the end of a person’s jail term? Will he or she not be at liberty to revenge on members of society who led to his or her arrest? This research and evaluation seeks to provide answers and solutions to once respected rehabilitation centers. Analysis of current and future aspects currently affecting prison administrators and evaluation of any other alternative correction systems will be core to this discussion.
It is worth noting that the world is changing and citizens are taking the central stage in the development through acting ‘The Watchman’. Public opinion keeps on gaining weight in today’s world, influencing actions taken by government. The public keeps on demanding responsiveness from government institutions and leaders they elect. They keep leaders on toes and answerable to any flaws in the systems they initiate.
Those involved in correction departments are deemed significant players in the ever rapidly expanding justice and administration sector. It has become necessary for them to critically analyze and plan for what the future has in stock for them. They have to keep on updated on the daily proceedings as twists and turns present themselves on every front. They should not be taken aback by the evolution trend expected in the near future.
They are aware and informed of the overwhelming explosion of inmate population in the United States of America. Statistics of the Bureau of Justice clearly highlights the shocking rise in numbers of inmates to a close of one million currently. Bearing in mind that the future is bleak, there is no hoe for reductions in these numbers. This has immense impacts on the budget allocated for prisons.
Citizens will have to deep in extra coin terms of taxes remitted in order to cater for the needed prison capacity boost. With the voice of citizens being the center behind the progress in any nation, this may fail to receive a positive backing in eyes of the society. People currently live in harsh economic times, where one not only wishes to live decently, but also to cater for his or her family. Asking people to deep into their pockets to cater for correctional centers will be a mockery to their financial status.
People always hope for the best in the future, but they are not in any position to clearly tell if it will be bright. If they do deem their past as being prologue, they must be ready to identify trends that will help them prepare for any adversities. They must be ready to put in place mechanisms that will counter the expected twists in these sectors. A significant increase is evident in the America corporate in the society’s realm of all prison operations. People do need to come up with alternatives to these old ways of rehabilitating people. Privatization is the way to go.
There, however, has to be a different definition accorded to this term. It does not have to necessarily mean the shift from the government control of prisoners to the private sectors’ control. The private sector is a profit oriented business. They are in for money and others even compromise the quality of services they do offer. The government still needs to have a vote in this sector in terms of moderating their operations. A decent example is the Pinkerton Company that has been known to help in tracing law breaking individuals, since the 1800s.
It served the public and did a lot of good.People already have these institutions operating in the society. These include security teams, counseling services, alarm systems automobiles and homes, private companies involved in acquiring bail bonds for their clients pending trials and many others. Introducing privatization to the prison management system has also become a main calling. Private institutions always have an edge over the public ones, as they tend to put their clients at heart. They also do serve a limited number of clients; hence, give maximum concentration on persons in question.
Staffs they hire are also of high caliber, as one must prove beyond doubt that he or she is the right person for the job. Their employees are always paid lump sum; hence, this trickles down to their quality services. This system may, however, elicit some doubts about their sanity. A prisoner may end up bribing his or her way out of the correctional center, since most private institutions have a main target of profit making.
This calls for effective mechanisms to monitor them. The rate at which staffs in prisons are being violated by inmates has risen. Some of these cases may never come to eyes of the public, as the state always wants to protect their image and prove that prisons have the best working conditions. It is worth noting that prisons have the most dangerous people on earth, and ones that society has failed to deal with. This is a place where murderers, thieves, arsons, rapists and even drug dealers are hosted.
What does one expect the prison staff to go through? Data collected from three prisons in the United SStates of America indicate that most prison staffs lose their lives while at work, and these cases go unmentioned. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which has with many responsibilities in prisons, has recorded many cases of disturbances of institutions in the past three years. Many of them have happened within the last three months. When generally attributed to tensions because of mandatory sentencing issues, perception of not fair sentencing structure and crack cocaine laws, incidents were, however, often dominated by several street gangs.
State correctional centers also do report similar cases. Street gangs are truly causing a threat to the society and this continues even in prisons. The past gangs used to lend an ear to corrective mechanisms, but the current ones do not. They have sophisticated means of communication, owing to the eminent growth in technology. This trend will keep on growing for decades to come, hence posing a challenge to prison workers. Many states are, however, not relenting on their quest for justice.
They have seen the need to counter these gangs and are coming up with creatively designed, constructed and operated prison facilities that are only understandable by few experts managing them. This is evident in Canada and twenty six jurisdictions that do employ this system. The California Department of Corrections and the one in Arizona do house the most dangerous and disruptive clientele. People do hope that these new mechanisms will counter these criminals, hence, working for the good of the prisons’ staff. People are always at the forefront in the crying for public safety. Public polls do testify this.
Researchers, such as Amanda Wunder, have postulated that the prisons’ population in the country will rise by more than 50% in coming decades. The latest Corrections Yearbook that is available notes that the national incarceration rate was 370 out of 100,000, which is an increase of 27 since 1993.This is because crime rates are still on the rise, and unless other methods of combating it are sought, there is an immense danger looming ahead.In conclusion, there are three main trends that hinder corrections in the United States.
The first is being the overwhelming inmate population due to the extension of sentences. The second is the shift of penal philosophy in the name of protecting the society. The third trend emphasizes on controlling costs and the economy. These developments have played a negative role in dramatic correctional programming.
Numbers of female inmates, elderly and young ones are not rising proportionately in prisons. An emphasis on the safety of the society has led to scarce resources programmed to offenders who pose the largest threat towards the society and who have medical conditions that can be treated but are crime-related. Lastly, the call for cost reduction has promoted a wide variety of initiatives, most vivid ones being privatization of the correction departments. It will take a long time for these developments to benefit the correctional programming. People are forced to acknowledge that everything that has to be done has got limits, whereas at the same time, check on our commitment in taking the necessary action.
Application of these mechanisms will definitely enable the transformation of correctional programming in American nation.
