CJUS 2301 Correctional Systems and Practices

Since the 1970s, the corrections system has experienced exponential growth. Over the past four decades, the number of inmates held in US prisons and jails has quadrupled. This massive growth is associated with a number of different issues and challenges within prisons and jails, including overcrowding; gang activity and misconduct; a shift away from rehabilitation and programming; expanded use of solitary confinement; inmates' human rights; criticisms of health care; and massive, publicly funded budgets. Many states now spend more on corrections than on higher education. This book explores these issues in depth. It takes current topics in institutional corrections and explores the main issues surrounding each. Themes include institutional corrections, prison behavior (including gangs and misconduct), solitary confinement, prison programming, and rehabilitation.

As part of the SAGE Guide to Writing series, The SAGE Guide to Writing in Corrections,1e, by Steven Hougland and Jennifer Allen, focuses on teaching students how to write in the academic setting while introducing them to a number of other professional writings specific to the correctional profession, such as the pre-sentence investigation report, contact sheets, court status reports, incident reports, rehabilitation and therapy. Covering correctional institutions as well as community corrections, the goal is to interweave professional and technical writing, academic writing, and information literacy, with the result being a stronger, more confident report writer and student in corrections. This text will be a concise supplemental writing book in courses focused on writing in the criminal justice discipline, report writing, or in introductory corrections courses. It is part of a series of books on this topic that will span criminal justice, policing, corrections, and research methods.

Corrections looks at the correctional system and offers arguments for and against the practice of the laws and policies that comprise corrections, from parole and probation to imprisonment, to the application of the death penalty. The 20 included chapters, written by eminent scholars and experts in the fields of criminology, police science, law, sociology, psychology, and other disciplines, take on such contested topics as what the goals of the correctional system should be (deterrence, rehabilitation, retribution, or something else?) and how they should be achieved; who should make these decisions; and how to balance the goals of the correctional system with the civil rights of the inmates. Prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners, as well as the changing definition of cruel and unusual punishment, are also examined. The SeriesThe five brief, issues-based books in SAGE Reference's Key Issues in Crime & Punishment Series offer examinations of controversial programs, practices, problems or issues from varied perspectives. Volumes correspond to the five central subfields in the Criminal Justice curriculum: Crime & Criminal Behavior, Policing, The Courts, Corrections, and Juvenile Justice. Each volume consists of approximately 20 chapters offering succinct pro/con examinations, and Recommended Readings conclude each chapter, highlighting different approaches to or perspectives on the issue at hand. As a set, these volumes provide perfect reference support for students writing position papers in undergraduate courses spanning the Criminal Justice curriculum. Each title is approximately 350 pages in length.

Unlike critics who see the organizational cultures of prisons, jails, and community correction agencies as a problem that needs to be fixed with simple-sounding reforms, Chris Innes argues instead that these types of organizational cultures are adaptive and a source of strength that can be used to genuinely transform them. He shows how operational priorities, including safety and security, become much more difficult to sustain when organizational cultures become fragmented into disconnected subcultures. To transform an organizational culture, he argues, this fragmentation must be "healed" by changing the patterns of communication that make up the day-to-day reality of an organization's culture. Innes advocates an innovative approach based on the skills and practices of dialogue. He describes in detail how Dialogic Practice can be used to transform organizational cultures through an implementation process that begins with the leadership and cascades through the organization as an expanding circle, as staff are trained and become engaged in the process. Innes draws upon the research and policy literature in several fields, the contemporary national debate on the role of the justice system in American society, and his own experience during the last forty years in correctional research and policy, and in working directly with correctional agencies.This innovative approach to transforming organizational cultures will interest correctional decision makers; administrators, researchers, and graduate students in criminal justice; advocates; and others who manage mission-driven human services organizations.Hardcover is un-jacketed.

What Works in Corrections, first published in 2006, examines the impact of correctional interventions, management policies, treatment and rehabilitation programs on the recidivism of offenders and delinquents. The book reviews different strategies for reducing recidivism and describes how the evidence for effectiveness is assessed. Thousands of studies were examined in order to identify those of sufficient scientific rigor to enable conclusions to be drawn about the impact of various interventions, policies and programs on recidivism. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses were performed to further examine these results. This book assesses the relative effectiveness of rehabilitation programs (e.g., education, life skills, employment, cognitive behavioral), treatment for different types of offenders (e.g. sex offenders, batterers, juveniles), management and treatment of drug-involved offenders (e.g., drug courts, therapeutic communities, outpatient drug treatment) and punishment, control and surveillance interventions (boot camps, intensive supervision, electronic monitoring). Through her extensive research, MacKenzie illustrates which of these programs are most effective and why.

Twenty to forty percent of the US prison population will spend time in restricted housing units--or solitary confinement. These separate units within prisons have enhanced security measures, and thousands of staff control and monitor the residents. Though commonly assumed to be punishment for only the most dangerous behaviors, in reality, these units may also be used in response to minor infractions. In Surviving Solitary, Danielle S. Rudes offers an unprecedented look inside RHUs--and a resounding call to more vigorously confront the intentions and realities of these structures. As the narratives unfold we witness the slow and systematic damage the RHUs inflict upon those living and working inside, through increased risk, arbitrary rules, and strained or absent social interactions. Rudes makes the case that we must prioritize improvement over harm. Residents uniformly call for more humane and dignified treatment. Staff yearn for more expansive control. But, as Rudes shows, there also remains fierce resilience among residents and staff and across the communities they forge--and a perpetual hope that they may have a different future.

Gangs are multifaceted and varied, so any attempt to understand them cannot be restricted to a singular approach. On Gangs provides a diverse and comprehensive survey of the available theories for understanding this social issue as well as the broad range of responses to it. The authors look at the many influences on gangs' operation, growth, prevention, and enforcement. The authors provide different criminological, psychological, and sociological approaches to gang studies, including interviews with past and current gang members. On Gangs presents the core issues for understanding gangs, including emerging topics like prison gangs, gender and gangs, and international gangs. There is also a focus on policing, legislation, and punishment. Weaving together research and policy findings to address the causes, contexts, and consequences of gangs, the authors address topics including joining, resisting, and leaving gangs, and how gangs operate in communities and institutions. An authoritative and sweeping tour of gang scholarship, On Gangs showcases the critical evidence-based solutions in prevention, enforcement, legislation, and intervention. The authors seek to answer the question: How do we effectively deal with gangs and gang membership?

This book looks intermediate sanctions systems and their individual programs. It begins with an overview of the background and foundation of intermediate sanctions programs and then describes in clear detail each program and its effectiveness.

What are the various forces influencing the role of the prison in late modern societies? What changes have there been in penality and use of the prison over the past 40 years that have led to the re-valorization of the prison? Using penal culture as a conceptual and theoretical vehicle, and Australia as a case study, this book analyses international developments in penality and imprisonment. Authored by some of Australia's leading penal theorists, the book examines the historical and contemporary influences on the use of the prison, with analyses of colonialism, post colonialism, race, and what they term the 'penal/colonial complex,' in the construction of imprisonment rates and on the development of the phenomenon of hyperincarceration. The authors develop penal culture as an explanatory framework for continuity, change and difference in prisons and the nature of contested penal expansionism. The influence of transformative concepts such as 'risk management', 'the therapeutic prison', and 'preventative detention' are explored as aspects of penal culture. Processes of normalization, transmission and reproduction of penal culture are seen throughout the social realm. Comparative, contemporary and historical in its approach, the book provides a new analysis of penality in the 21st century.

Police and corrections personnel must always be mindful of the possibility that those in their custody may attempt suicide or commit an act of self-mutilation. Persons housed in prisons, jails, and police lockups tend to be at a higher risk for such destructive behavior than members of the general population. Reasons for this can be found by examining the mental health, substance abuse, and physical/sexual abuse histories of inmates in addition to deficits in their coping skills and the stress and uncertainty generated by incarceration. This book explores several topics pertaining to suicide and deliberate self-harm in the corrections setting, including who tends to commit these acts; where, when, and how these incidents occur; screening mechanisms; the role of environmental stimuli in facilitating or preventing acts of self harm; interpersonal relations among inmates and between inmates and staff; and the role of the courts in setting and ruling on suicide prevention policies. The authors discuss the role of prevention techniques that offer a balance between strict opportunity-reduction and softer motivation-reduction strategies. The book also includes suggestions for diversion programs that can keep mentally ill inmates out of prisons and jails and transition planning programs to better prepare outgoing inmates for their re-entry into the community.

Raised in a comfortable Dallas suburb, Mark Dostert crossed cultural and socioeconomic boundaries as a college student by volunteering as a counselor at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, Chicago's infamous 500-cell juvenile jail, known locally as the Audy Home. Inmates there had been indicted on first-degree murder, rape, and carjacking charges, yet some enthusiastically met with him for weekly Bible-based lessons and discussions. Dostert formed friendly relationships with his students and envisioned becoming an even closer mentor to the legally troubled boys when he became an employee there after graduating from college. The juveniles' attitudes toward Dostert change, however, once he begins working as a "Children's Attendant" at the Audy Home, clocking in for eight hours every day to enforce rules and maintain order on the cellblocks. His colorblind, altruistic volunteer world fractures into a full-time, emotionally charged reality of white and black and brown. When the boys change, he must change too. Despite wanting to help them feel human in such a dehumanizing environment, Dostert realizes he needs to make sure his kindness is not perceived as weakness. Dostert learns to march the juveniles through the facility to school, recreation activities, and chapel. He must strip-search them, interrupt their brawls, root through their cells for drugs and handcrafted weapons, and monitor group showers to thwart sexual extortion and the inscription of gang symbols in soap on walls and mirrors. Week after week and month after month, the job exposes hidden views not only of the juveniles and the "system" incarcerating them, but of Children's Attendant Dostert himself. From one man's struggle to reconcile his humanitarian intentions with his actual job responsibilities in what, to him, is a strange new world, emerges a sincere effort to confront the realities of America's persisting racial tensions and institutionalized poverty. Dostert's story is an honest and unflinching journey from thinking he has many of the answers for how to change this world to discovering how little he really knows about the world he is trying to change.