Training Staff for Criminal Justice Essay Example for Free

Training Staff for Criminal Justice Essay The three key issues intricate with correctional staff are corruption, staff safety, gender and staffing. Correction officers are people that tried to become cops but failed. So their morals take a huge hit because they are upset about not being able to become a police officer. So it is easier for them to be corrupted because that’s their way of getting back at the system. Another way of corruption is by force and fear; maybe a prison gang is threatening the correctional officer family. Either way I believe that in order to prevent officers of becoming corrupted there should be more cameras and have a better ethics-training program. One effective management policies and procedures is to start a code of ethics program for correctional officers, a program that makes correctional officers comprehend the code of standards of morality since they are involved in greater demands than just being a decent person. They need to understand that without their morals people get hurt or even killed. Second key issue is staff safety there has been horrific situations were inmates murder correctional officers and thus people are afraid to work in prisons. While inmate populations go up, correctional officers are going down because the things you read and hear on the news. For example â€Å" (1) the savage murder of Correctional Officer Jose Rivera on June 20, 2008, by two prison inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Atwater, CA. ; (2) the brutal stabbing of a correctional officer on April 23, 2009, by a prison inmate at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, IN. (3) the brutal stabbing of a correctional officer on November 1, 2009, by a prison inmate at the United States Penitentiary in Lewisburg, PA; and (4) the more than 350 vicious inmate-on-staff assaults that have occurred at various BOP institutions since the murder of Correctional Officer Rivera. † (By Joe Davidson,October 15, 2012) Correctional officers deal with murders, rapists, and mentally ill the refore their job can be very difficult. If failing to protect your staff, visitors and detainees then there can be major implications for your institute. Second effective management policies and procedures for recruiting and training are to set up an investigative committee to search for and punish instances of staff getting hurt. Internal policing should be balanced carefully. There should be more correctional officers at prisons that carry the most notorious criminals. Maybe have more K9s to help prevent attacks from inmates. The third key issues involved with correctional staff is gender and staffing. I don’t believe there should be females in male facilities because most girls love the attention and that’s unprofessional when its in male prisons. You hear on the news about female guards getting impregnated by inmates and that’s very immoral of them. These correctional officers should be in jail because these inmates are people that committed horrible crimes and is in prison to be punished! â€Å"Four female correction officers were impregnated by the reported leader of a Maryland prison gang, which used a network of female prison guards to help launder money, run drugs and smuggle contraband into state detention facilities, according to a federal indictment. (By RUSSELL GOLDMAN, April 24, 2013) These female guards were smuggling contraband and gifts for the black guerrilla family. If we had only male correctional officers in male prisons then there will be less temptation to giving in. Third effective management policies and procedures for recruiting is to watch officers tattoos, these female guards in MD that got pregnant from gang leader of the black guerrilla family had gotten tattooed â€Å"Tevon† on their bodies. Therefore we need to identify and monitor officers suspected of dishonesty. Officers with tattoos such as symbols of gangs on their wrists or necks may be indicating an affiliation or rank in a prison gang. Background checks on correctional officers also may be an effective way of uncovering gang ties and a history of unethical behavior. I think in order to have a good correctional officer you need to find one that’s not affiliated with gangs, try to find a candidate that has no history with gang activity. â€Å"Good officers come from a good environment. They enjoy supportive, two-parent families with siblings, quality education and at least a modicum of financial affluence. They are free of prejudice and abnormal training in arts that no human has any business practicing, such as torture and murder. They feel honest compassion for man, animals and our ecology. They are subject to guidance, oversight, quality control, censure, and feedback loops from moral individuals and real punishment for deliberate acts of abuse. They will know what it feels like to be abused. The scientific application of all these principals will make good corrections officers. †(James Bauhaus, what makes a good prison guard) Plan to Improve Correctional Facilities I believe need to help people stay out of the system. So many are in for minor offenses and come out ten times worse when they arrived inside. I’ve seen friends that came back more violent and more streets smart. So I think there should be a lot more programs and support from the government to help individuals to learn a profession so that they can have a chance to fly straight. â€Å"Once were in jail, theres no point sending us back out to do it all again. Incarceration is the punishment of someone that did something illegal; incarceration is to make someone change for the better. Youve got us locked up, so use the time to help us change. Dont turn out the same person who went in (or a worse person the party bag were sent away with usually includes a nice new line in bullying, violence, manipulation and drug use) because well carry on committing crime, as we dont know any other way to live. If prisons did nothing more than run effective drugs programs, the crime rate over the next five years would be slashed. We advocate therapy, talent recognition initiatives, training, education, and drug and alcohol programs. Some of these already exist, but there arent enough programs, and not enough of them work. In fact, a lot are expensive disasters. (Mark Johnson, The Guardian, 2008) One major target population is women in jail. Female inmates live in the same surroundings as men do however female inmates face more problems because I think they get more emotional then men do thus their issues start growing more and more eventually blowing up their anger amongst women inmates. Overall, the population of women in the criminal justice system is the fastest growing. Women in prison have gone up over twenty percent and over fifteen percent in probation. â€Å"The growth in the female incarcerated population was 2. 2 percent since 2,000. (Leonard Sipes, Statistics on Women Offenders) While the population of women in prison has been going up, there has not been a rise of women prisons. Women are more likely to be in a prison that is far away from their families. Which will hurt their family and even worse their children. With not a lot of contact with their children, I think stress levels get high among women in jail. When you put women into these situations then they look for an alternative to ease the pain and anger. That’s when drugs come into play. â€Å"In Maryland, half the women reported daily heroin use in the six months leading up to their arrest compared to lightly more than a third of men. Half the women reported daily cocaine use compared to 22 percent of men. † (Leonard Sipes, Statistics on Women Offenders) Our budget spending on facilities is ridiculous because the system is not doing what they are supposing so do. They don’t help rehabilitate inmates as much as they should. Pretty much we tax payers are not getting our moneys worth. â€Å"Ten years ago, the correctional healthcare market was $4. 5 billion in annual spending, with approximately 40% outsourced to private vendors. Today, the share of the mar ket served by outsourcing is growing alongside a rising inmate population. As a corollary, the rising costs of healthcare due to a graying correctional population and other factors have doubled the market to over $10 billion. † (Marc Baudry, 2012) There are three major keys to help issues in corrections†¦ the first one is education programs. EVERYONE knows education is very important to succeed in life. Therefore there should be more educational programs and it should be mandatory to attend. I know at first its going to be hard but once inmates get out the system and find a decent job then the word will spread and then inmates will take advantage of these programs. They should capitalize on inmates that have a family. â€Å"McElrath-Bey argues that investment can’t be limited to higher education. Though GED programs exist in most prisons, many inmates are still unable to take advantage. Typically, inmates who have financial support from the outside—from family or friends—are the ones who earn their degrees. Inmates with no help are forced to take prison work, to pay for the food, clothes and toiletries—like soap and toothpaste—that make life bearable inside prison walls. You can either go to school, or you can work to earn the basic necessities you need to survive. (Mathew Fleischer, 2013) Probation and parole is my second major key to help issues in corrections. Sometimes the probation officer gets burnt out and stops caring for inmates. I think there should be more contact and communication with the probation officer and parole. The inmate needs as much help as he can get so probation officers should do as much as he or she can to make sure that the offender does not return to prison. I know there are so many inmates that don’t care and end up coming back to prison but that still shouldn’t stop the probation officer from doing his or her job. My third one is a faith-based program. I’ve seen people change because of their new beliefs and I think that’s what most inmates need. A faith-based program is a good idea because it teaches inmates the way of believing something such as god or whatever religion. People sometimes don’t want to understand the ways of god but when you read and think about the sins you committed then you start to feel some remorse. I’ve seen this happen with two of my cousins. Both were in jail and while reading the bible it helped them understand their need to change for the better. One of them is out working at Sprint as a sales consultant doing very well for himself now. The other is still waiting for his trial in September. Whatever the outcome may be I believe with faith based programs it’ll turn inmates to a better person. One way to improve target population is better social skills for inmates. Prisons need a greater unity between warden, prisoners and staff. Also stop having a race thing. There should be a group of people that are different race put in each cell. Second way to improve population is stop the overcrowding. People that are on edge are more likely to blow up on someone when they are always around. Sometimes an inmate needs some space to try to deal with their issues. My third suggestion to improve target population is to upgrade the prisons and jails because some facilities are rundown and rotting so this could possibly present health and safety hazards for inmates. No one would like to live in poor conditions so its time to have a modernization in correctional facilities. I think with these ideas, inmate issues will decrees and that inmates frustration/problems will be resolved more quickly. Philosophy and Goals of Punishment and Reformation The goals of punishment and reformation are to rehabilitate people that commit crimes and to protect our citizens. History has taught us the nature of corrections, People need to be punished for their actions however sometimes there are some people that are sick and not know what they are doing. Times are changing so there are new tactics/programs to help criminals get back on their feet. â€Å"How criminals were punished and the methods behind the punishment changed throughout the times. Standards of punishment moved from banishment and fines to torture and blood feuds (Siegel Senna, 2005). A more organized system of punishment came forth with the formation of Common Law, which was brought over to the United States from England. With the development of a system, there was a move away from physical punishment toward methods more acceptably used yet today in the United States. † (Elizabeth Renter, 2008) With that said, there are three major challenges to corrections, using an evidence based approach can help determine the best way to deal with different offenders to attempt to achieve the different goals of the criminal justice system. Reformation is to make people fear being punished and to correct peoples behavior. Unfortunately you can go to jail for something minor like possession of drugs, traffic violations, and misdemeanor offences. The first major issue of discussion is prison and jail overcrowding. Numerous reports and television indicate that even down to the local city and county jail, overcrowding has affected the small town as well. The overcrowding of prisons and jails appears to be result of the growing number of offenders of petty crime, who ultimately end up incarcerated for short periods of time. It is hard on correction officers when they have to deal with a large number of population. The second major issue facing corrections is gangs. You always hear it from the guards and inmates that â€Å"numbers is power†. Gangs make it hard for an individual to come in and try to fly straight. Gangs will either make you suffer by selling you to other inmates or your going to have you do illegal actions that might add time to your original sentencing. They are very manipulative and real quick to kill anyone even officers just to make a point. Its all about money and power for prison gangs such as the Mexican Mafia, they make millions working the cartels and making their street gangs to move/sell drugs around the United Sates. There are lots of reasons why convicts go back to jail. They might have gotten use to being locked up and would rather stick to what they know because the real world can be scary, finding a decent job is very hard now, the digital age might be intimidating to the older criminals, and sometimes the system forces you back in. For example if you are from Florida and committed a crime in Virginia when you get out, you have to find a way back home. Sometimes you can’t leave the state till Florida reviews your case and allows you to come back. My third major issue is the increased imprisonment of crimes caused there to be a larger population in facilities, now more then ever there is more hazardous conditions for everyone because correctional officers have to deal with transmissible diseases in their facilities. One of the scariest things is dealing with prisoners with HIV and other catchable diseases. Not all of these individuals catch these diseases by sexual stuff but some of the offenders may have gotten it by sharing needles (drug use). This presents a situation where other prisoners and guards may be at risk for coming into contact with these sick people. My philosophy of corrections that includes using an evidence based approach is to not place every offender in the same category/cell as it would be very hard to deal with certain people that have the same offense. I just think that drug dealers should be all in one prison unless they committed other crimes like murder. White collard criminals should still be in the same prison with blue collard criminals. Blue collard criminals represent a more heinous level of crime however they both stole money even though one did it over the Internet and the other had a gun. Todays correctional policies appear to be unsuccessful in dealing with crime and offenders but in order to work towards a better system, research and development is necessary to understand how to correct these flaws and to build a more improve system for turning offenders into law abiding citizens. Rehabilitation and reformation are still a goal of punishment today in the United States but due to the reoffending criminals it is hard to believe it is possible to get a criminal to change their conduct. This method may work well with drug users that are ready to get clean. In conclusion corrections can be a challenging field today with obstacles in the way of finding the perfect method of dealing with crime and offenders. My philosophy of corrections using evidenced based approach is to limit the penalty for minor offenders. Have them work hard cleaning our country and building homes for poor families. This might reduce people in jail/prisons and improving the way that criminals live by not going for the easy cash. They will have learned a new skill before the leave. â€Å"The truth is, of course, that punishment practices of the recent past have, for the most part, been strikingly lenient. Thoughtful and considered public opinion is capable of recognizing when criminals are not receiving the punishments they deserve. † (Ronald Pestritto, 1996) Three goals of punishment and reformation, prison is an effective form of punishment for bad offenders such as killers and rapists. It serves a purpose to deter criminals from committing their crimes again as well as being a form of retributive justice for the victims. Second is a question, what is reformation? It is a goal of rehabilitation for many offenders, the goal for a prison to punish people instead of death. The loss of freedom to go anywhere, to drive, eat your avorite meal, and to see your friends and family. Third one is I believe a good prison should be an adequate retribution for the crime but also focus on rehabilitating the criminals that committed a minor offence such as steeling something small, people with small amounts of drugs, and young kids. The thing people need to know is that most of these folks in prison are eventually going to come out again. So we think its smart policy to try to change them while theyre locked up, so that when they return to society there will be fewer victims on the street. (Fox Butterfield, Inmate Rehabilitation Returns as Prison Goal, 2001)