U.S. Correctional System Overview

Introduction

• George Williams, while serving at Attica Correctional Facility, was beaten by corrections officers, leading to injuries and a guilty plea of misdemeanor charges for the officers involved.
• This case highlights the brutality and violence common in maximum-security prisons.
• The U.S. correctional system has over 1.5 million inmates at the federal, state, and county levels.
• Felons are typically housed in isolated, high-security state or federal penitentiaries (prisons).
• Misdemeanants are housed in local county jails, reformatories, or houses of correction.
• Juvenile offenders are placed in nonsecure "schools," "camps," "ranches," or "homes" that offer confinement and rehabilitative services.
• Some officials advocate for jails and prisons to rehabilitate offenders in "therapeutic communities".
• Others argue secure facilities should deter criminals and separate them from society, measuring success by security, incapacitation length, lower crime rates, and fear of sanctions.
• Despite a decline in crime rates alongside an increase in incarceration, the impact of secure confinement on crime reduction remains uncertain.
• Factors like police effectiveness and improved social conditions may play a more significant role.
• High incarceration rates haven't met stated goals, with many inmates re-offending.
• The contemporary correctional system is complex, housing different offender classes in various institutions.
• Felons go to high-security prisons, misdemeanants to county jails (reformatories or houses of correction), and juveniles to specialized institutions.
• Prison farms, community correctional centers, and halfway houses also exist for adult offenders and those re-entering society.

History of Correctional Institutions

• Originally, legal punishments were banishment, slavery, restitution, corporal measures, and execution.
• Incarceration for long periods wasn't a norm until the 19th century.
• Early European institutions in England were built in the 10th century to hold pretrial detainees and convicts awaiting sentencing.
• During the 12th century, King Henry II built county jails for thieves and vagrants.
• In 1557, Bridewell workhouse was established for those convicted of minor offenses to work off their debt.
• Those with more serious offenses were held awaiting execution.
• Early penal institutions were unsanitary and lacked proper care, food, and medical attention.
• Jailers exploited inmates for personal profit, and conditions were deplorable.
• Early jails held criminals awaiting trial, vagabonds, debtors, the mentally ill, and others.
• Jailers ran jails under a fee system, requiring inmates to pay for food and services.
• Inmates unable to pay received scraps and starved.
• From 1776-1785, the English housed prisoners on hulks (abandoned ships) due to a growing inmate population.
• The hulks were known for poor conditions and brutal punishments but were used up until 1858.
• Correctional reform first occurred in the U.S., despite Europe having jails and other penal facilities.
• The first American jail was in James City, Virginia colony, in the early 17th century.
• Pennsylvania, under William Penn, pioneered the modern American correctional system.
• Penn revised Pennsylvania's criminal code to prohibit torture and mutilation at the end of the 17th century.
• He mandated new institutions to replace public punishments like stocks and branding irons.
• Each county was ordered to construct a house of corrections, similar to today's jails.
• These reforms lasted until Penn's death in 1718, after which open public punishment and brutality were reinstated.

Creating a Correctional System

• The modern correctional system began with 18th-century developments in Pennsylvania.
• Post-revolutionary Pennsylvania reenacted William Penn's code in 1776.
• The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons was created in 1787 by Benjamin Rush and a group of Quakers.
• The society aimed to bring order and humane treatment to the penal system.
• Quakers influenced limiting the death penalty to treason, murder, rape, and arson, and sought prison reform as an alternative to physical punishment.
• Under Quaker pressure, the Pennsylvania legislature called for prison system renovation in 1790.
• A separate wing of Philadelphia's Walnut Street Jail was created to house convicted felons (excluding those sentenced to death).
• Inmates were put in solitary cells with no labor, and these quarters were termed penitentiary houses.
• Similar institutions emerged in New York (Newgate, 1791) and New Jersey (Trenton, 1798).
• Pennsylvania took a radical step in 1818 by establishing a prison that put each inmate in single cell for the duration of his sentence.
• Classifications were eliminated, with each cell acting as a miniature prison to prevent inmate association.
• The Western State Penitentiary was built in Allegheny County in 1827 as a semicircle with cells along its circumference.
• Some cells faced the boundary wall, while others faced the internal area.
• Inmates performed hard labor in solitary confinement, except for about an hour of daily exercise.
• The solitary system at Western Penitentiary eventually failed due to inadequate air and light in the small cells.
• The building had to be demolished in the 1830s and was rebuilt in 1882 with larger cells, known as Riverside, and is still in use.

New York vs Pennsylvania Prison Models

• The Eastern State Penitentiary was built outside Philadelphia in 1829, abandoning corporal punishment and inmate mistreatment.
• The penitentiary aimed to inspire spiritual reflection and change, not just punish criminals.
• It employed a Quaker-inspired system of isolation with labor, and inmates were hooded outside their cells.
• Proponents believed silence and reflection on crimes would lead to penitence.
• The building's design featured seven cell blocks radiating from a surveillance rotunda.
• Each prisoner had a private, centrally heated cell with running water, a flush toilet, a skylight, and a private outdoor exercise yard.
• Inmates received a Bible and engaged in honest work like shoemaking and weaving, believed to foster penitence.
• Women were housed in the prison until 1923 when a separate facility was built in Muncy, Pennsylvania.
• Pennsylvania system supporters believed in the penitentiary as a place for penance through isolation and reflection on the evils of crime.
• The system reflected the influence of religion and religious philosophy on corrections.
• Solitary confinement with labor was considered attractive enough to allow inmates to resume productive lives upon release.
• New York built a new prison at Auburn in 1816 to alleviate overcrowding at Newgate.
• The Auburn Prison design, known as the tier system, had cells built vertically on five floors.
• It was also termed the congregate system because most prisoners ate and worked in groups.
• The Auburn system's philosophy focused on crime prevention through fear and silent confinement.
• The worst felons were cut off from contact with other prisoners but were treated relatively well.
• Hard work and silence became the foundation of the Auburn system, ensuring discipline.
• Silence prevented escape plans, plots, riots, and allowed prisoners to contemplate infractions.
• Advocates of the Pennsylvania and Auburn systems debated fiercely.
• The Auburn system prevailed and spread across the U.S., but the Eastern State Penitentiary remained in use until 1971.
• Innovations from the Auburn system included congregate working conditions, solitary confinement for unruly inmates, military regimentation, and discipline.
• Prisoners were marched from place to place, and their time was regulated by bells.

Prison Industry

• Prison industry became a dominant theme around institutions.
• The contract system involved officials selling inmate labor to private businesses, who sometimes supervised inmates inside the prison.
• Under the convict-lease system, the state leased prisoners to businesses for a fixed annual fee, relinquishing supervision and control.
• Some institutions produced goods for their own use.
• The development of prison industry led to inmate abuse, forcing them to work for minimal wages.
• This also led to profiteering administrators and business owners.
• During the Civil War, prisons manufactured clothes, shoes, boots, and furniture.
• In the 1870s, opposition by trade unions led to restrictions on interstate commerce in prison goods.
• After the Civil War, states shifted to the public account system, where the state directed employment and sold prisoners' labor for the state's benefit.
• Some jurisdictions compensated prisoners, deducting funds for room, board, clothing, and trial costs.
• Remaining funds went to inmates' families, and inmates without families received their accumulated earnings upon release.

Penal Reform

• The National Congress of Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline in Cincinnati in 1870 marked a new era.
• Organized by penologists Enoch Wines and Theodore Dwight, it provided corrections experts a platform for better treatment, education, and training.
• Penal reform was being developed overseas where inmates could earn early release and serve out the rest of their sentence in their community.
• Zebulon Brockway, warden of the Elmira Reformatory, advocated individualized treatment, the indeterminate sentence, and parole.
• Brockway's reformatory program included elementary education, library hours, lectures, and vocational training shops.
• From 1888 to 1920, Elmira administrators used military-like training to discipline and organize inmates.
• Military organization was evident in schooling, manual training, sports, supervision, and even parole decisions.
• The cost of the institution's operations was minimized.
• Brockway proclaimed Elmira an ideal reformatory, even though his achievements were limited.
• His main contribution was injecting humanitarianism into industrial prisons.
• Many reformatories were built and labeled after the Elmira model, but most continued to be industrially oriented.

Twentieth Century Prisons

• The U.S. prison system saw contrasts in the early 20th century.
• Reform advocates like Thomas Mott Osborne of the Mutual Welfare League proposed better treatment for inmates and an end to corporal punishment.
• Reformers also wanted meaningful prison industries and educational programs.
• Reformers argued that society's education, religion, meaningful work, and self-governance should be applied to prisons.
• Osborne spent a week in Sing Sing Prison to learn firsthand about conditions.
• Rigid prison rules were eased over time for liberal reform.
• By the mid-1930s, gray uniforms replaced red-and-white striped suits, the code of silence and lockstep shuffle ended.
• Prisoners were allowed "freedom of the yard" for exercise, movies, and radio. Visiting policies and mail privileges were liberalized.
• Specialized prisons were developed to treat particular offenders.
• Prisons like Clinton and Auburn in New York were industrial facilities for hard-core inmates.
• Great Meadow was an agricultural center for non-dangerous offenders, and Dannemora was for the criminally insane.
• In California, San Quentin housed salvageable inmates, while Folsom was for hard-core offenders.
• Opposition by organized labor helped end the convict-lease system and forced inmate labor.
• By 1900, states restricted prisoner-made goods sales, and the Great Depression prompted further pressure to reduce competition from prison industries.
• The Sumners-Ashurst Act (1940) made it a federal offense to transport interstate commerce goods made in prison for private use.
• Restrictions by the federal government curtailed prison industry for 40 years, leading to inmate idleness and make-work jobs.
• In the mid-20th century, the prison remained a destructive total institution with severe discipline, harsh rules, and solitary confinement.

Parole Development

• Though prisons are an American invention, the concept of parole originated overseas
• The term "parole" comes from the French word for "promise."
• Releasing captured enemy soldiers is an example, if they promised not to fight again, or face execution if recaptured
• In the early 17th century, English judges spared offenders by banishing them to overseas colonies
• The British Parliament formalized this in 1617, granting reprieves to convicts willing to be transported
• It addressed the labor shortage as a result of war, disease, and new commercial markets
• Transportation orders included specific conditions of employment, and could reconsider punishment, if the conditions were not met
• The British Parliament created “property in service” in 1717, which transferred control of prisoners over to a contractor or shipmaster
• Their services could be resold in the colonies, and their status changed from convict to indentured servant
• Transportation of theft offenders became the most common sentence
• In the American colonies, this practice was abandoned after the revolution in 1770
• Australia became the destination for transported felons - becoming a British colony in 1770
• Inmates were shipped to Australia from 1815 to 1850 to work as indentured servants on stations, mines, and plantations
• In England organizations such as the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline opposed penal servitude and the deprivations of transportation
• Alexander Maconochie was asked to investigate conditions in Australia, he condemned transportation, and helped end the practice
• Maconochie reformed the Australian prison that was in Norfolk Island - such as classification and rehabilitation programs - where he was then in place as director
• Maconochie went back to England, and the English Penal Servitude Act of 1853 all but ended transportation and substituted it for imprisonment
• A “ticket-of-leave” was made possible by this act, for those having served a sufficient portion of their sentence.
• This allowed formal prisoners to be at large in specified areas, as long as they included a license to carry
• Sobriety, lawful behavior, and hard work was usually included in licenses
• Many people broke those provisions, resulting criticism
• Members of prisoner and society started helping to supervise and care for releasees
• Sir Walter Crofton was a disciple of Maconochies’ reforms
• Crofton liberalized Irish prisons, and instituted a mark system for inmates to earn “tickets-of-leave”
• Crofton instituted the mark, so that people would accumulate credits by doing good conduct and hard work
• Police agents and private volunteers were given the roll to monitor offenders
• This is considered an early form of parole
• The concept of parole started spreading to the U.S., with volunteers assisting offenders once released since 1822
• In Pennsylvania in 1851, 2 agents were assigned to work with inmates who had been discharged from institutions
• Massachusetts would also appoint agents in 1845, to help released inmates obtain jobs, clothing, and transportation
• Zebulon Brockway went on to select rehabilitated offenders from Elmira Reformatory in the 1870s
• Citizen volunteers who were called guardians, would meet with the parolees
• Programs and the parole concept spread rapidly
• Ohio created their first parole agency in 1884, and by 1901, 20 states had created a version of parol
• Florida, Mississippi, and Virginia had not established any sort of parole release by 1927
• Parole was institutionalized as the primary release method for inmates, and half of U.S. inmates were paroled

Contemporary Correctional Institutions

• Change and turmoil is at place during the modern era within the correctional system of the nation, with 3 distinct trends
• “prisoners’ rights” movement started between 1960 and 1980, and courts ruled in favor of inmates having the right to freedom, medical care, and proper living conditions
• The growth of inmate rights have been curtailed since 1980
• Violence becoming a national concern was the second, and riots drew attention to the potential murders and prison rapes
• control has shifted from staff to inmate gangs
• Improved conditions and innovation programs were tried to give inmates a voice
• To manage dangerous offenders , they have had to tighten discipline and have built new facilities
• Prison overcrowding have extremely attempted to improve difficult conditions
• The failing correctional rehabilitation efforts to have prompt, prompts rehabilitation being abandoned
• It was very common for administrators in the 1960s ad 1980s to clean to the medical model, as inmates viewed as sick
• Treatment assumed, can cure them as well as help them life productive lives when they leave

Corrections Counselor

• Duties of a job includes reviewing the situations of offenders to find more effective methods of rehabilitation
• Create manage, enact, and evaluating programs for the psychosocial functions of offenders
• Counselors provide education session and counseling, along with reports for court and surveying of needs
• Counselors can choose specific fields, like juvenile rehabilitation or substance abuse
• Many a stressful job is in office setting, inmates of nature are often serious/high pressure

Job Outlook - Corrections Counselor

• employment of counselors is to grow faster than the average in the near future, due to prison system expansion
• The annual salary is ~ $53,000 and the highest 10% earned more than $80,000
• Urban areas and graduate level jobs and higher salaries/greater job opportunities
• High rates of employment turnover for higher prospects
• A potential to be promoted into more administrative positions, since they readily look towards those with education and more training
• Qualifications for higher paid demands are more demanding
• Counselor’s education should familiarize with criminal justice system, reducing the client’s chances of recidivism and speaking 1+ language
• Personality skills are also important such as, helping others, and communication
• Background checks is something necessary due to those roles.

The Nation after the 1980s and Correctional Outlook - Corrections Counselor

• Prisons were viewed for punishment, control, and incapacitation over rehabilitation/reform
• dual correctional: dangerous, incarcerate for long periods, nonviolent offenders should not be in the correctional system.
• Compromised by sentences that have judicial and legislative growing tough stance
• Following the most prominent correctional facilities are shown today
• Jail primary purposes:
• Detainees that are accused who cannot make/or eligible for bail prior to trial
• Holding offenders awaiting sentence
• Principal institution serving secure confinement for offenders of misdemeanors.
• Parolees or probationers who are picked up for violations that hold probationers
• Overcrowding of state prison can be achieved by housing felons

The Purpose of Jails

• The purpose and characteristics of jail population
• Current jail incarceration rate is ~ 226 inmates, and 738,000 at any given time
• 9/10 inmates are male, and over 47% of the population is minorities
• Black represents over 32% and Hispanics is 15% making this a significant problem
• Thousands of children were known at holding runaways and truants, held many thousands of children at some time
• The number with juveniles has declined since 2000
• Currently ~ 3400 miners that are being held down from ~7600 in 2000
• Some are being held in adults, or no ones accepted federal mandates
• The majority are women as at 15% women

Gender in Jail

• Men make up 85% men in a jail population
• The percentage of adult females incarceration past 2 decades increased
• Female challenge - significant disadvantaged backgrounds
• Severe economy, abuse
• High, and substance abuse

Jail Re-entering and Conditions

• Difficult for inmates in society, that have women
• Employment seems to be an issue
• Most likely to have education or driver license
• low criminal justice system
• Counties is often handled in level
• Condition not regulate of law and has not be development
• The jails
• untroubled
• abuse
• Two is having that problem
• Psychotic is shown by one
• Not that surprising for counts
• rate reduced, higher than general

New Generation of Jails

• These generations of jails - are being improve jail building
• Design to improve effectiveness new generation
• Referred to on construct traditional jails that refers to “Intermittent surveillance model.”
• Rectangular are built, arranged that are at right angles
• Areas are areas housing and officers patrols.
• Inmated when unobserve
• Term of the generation
• The contract are continuous
• 2 types - directs/jails supervision
• Supervision and cells
• Observation and visual
• Increase with office inmate
• Safe both, officer the environment needs one
• Monitor consistently

Jail Procedures and Structure

• Dissension escalates
• in the are and there no permission from the area during in day with staff charges
• Trouble with cells, office time,
• central remote, communication in officer the case
• Control area

Constructing of Jails

• Construct similar use
• Unit and speaker can communicate and hear.
• helps release but not their promise to live in
• They lack components facilities
• To normalizing environment with
• Public/private that are known as prisons, and that secure - 1,800
• Organizes with million on levels
• Distinct.
• housing the is of the prisons.
• Subjects are and film
• prisons are known
• Walpote and others

Prisons and its Structure

• Rock are prisons
• Fortress
• Walls with towers
• barbed guards
• incapacitated
• High-tech admin have
• interior
• Electronic devices
• block wing
• meals education
• Contained to cell
• Viewed privilege
• To be federal/state penal

Security By Word

• Maximum - bysecurity word
• Workers with the that they violence and to do is violent there need the of all violence corners
• Can be that construct
• Super prison - max security
• Predator the house
• Independent that are high
• Wings locked to - centers correctional.
• Allowed they unless lock the prisoners

Security on a Technical Level

• Correctional management in are management
• Management are that
• Committing technology in: commitments, accounting, schedule, programs
• Supervision release, and technology
• Administration technology
• Inmate walls
• and chances
• Inmates ground with escape use

Methods to Decrease Escapes

• Old way are to almost with voids location tunnels: radar penetrating ground
• Vehicle monitoring heartbeats prevent on how
• Sensors beating heart and
• Hiding in the signal truck

Preventative Measures and Intelligence

• From electric
• climbing stopping Inmates
• Electric or the they
• at alert the with temporary time.
• Unique wristband: transmitter

Jail Inmate Tracking

• Technology, jail the track to location monitor: identification radio frequency
• Tags: transponders radio, movements tags
• The alerts to if staff. Concentration
• who computers and can Inpart
• Using data

Artificial Intelligence in The Correctional system

• Correctional AI and the institutions.
• Data inmates
• Learning machines and recognition to
• Companies, use that data
• alert language
• and authorities in the prisons
• Drones in surveillance

The Effects of Security and Personal Rights

• Inmates some in privacy, elements on
• Rights outweigh need, the for should?
• The data in parolees on monitoring tech
• Privacy should be
• and institutions, prisoners on make safe
• are prison elderly, are what rising health care -the are, Elderly

Ethical Issue and Corrections

• Issues are to they prison?
• The factors adjustment the elderly
• the other
• There they gear in
• needs comes it prisoners the at is and high
• cost times the cost over an
• health other poor have likely
• Incarcerate bill prison billions 81% annual second debate

Parole and Compassionate Release

• or parole and can
• Sick is that the
• 2022 and covid that the
• Prison side: covid, to
• Risks individuals