Institutional Corrections Exam 2

Jails hold people …

Before trial, convicted before sentencing, convicted minor offenders (sentences less than a year), juveniles, women, and people for state/federal authorities.

Jails serve to …

Incapacitate, deter, rehabilitative, punish, and reintegrate. Not held for long periods of time, people are processed through quickly.

Who is most likely to commit suicide in jail?

Males, white, violent offense, history of substance abuse, and newly incarcerated. More common in smaller jails because less cameras/officers.

Prison Rpe Elimination Act (2003)

Mandated the Bureau of Justice Statistics collect data on SA in adult and juvenile jails/prisons and identify facilities with high levels of victimization.

Females are more likely to be SA victimized by?

Other inmates

Males are more likely to be SA victimized by?

Staff

Speciality Courts

Problem-solving courts, domestic violence courts, mental health courts, video courts, and veternan’s courts.

Problem Solving Courts

Courts of limited jurisdiction meant to address underlying causes of criminal behavior (substance abuse, mental illness, homelessness, domestic abuse).

Mental Health Courts

Mental Disorder (Clinically significant conditions characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior associated with personal distress)

Veterans Courts

Hybrids of drug & mental health courts.

What are the different types of prisons?

Supermax, maximum, medium, and minimum security

How are prisoners classified?

Based on crime, criminal history, escape risk, behavioral issues, health/programming needs, and gang affiliation.

Supermax Prisons

High security, violent/disruptive in other prisons, escape risks. 23+ hours in cell, showers 3x week, food in cell. 2-3x more expensive to build.

Maximum Security Prisons (1/5 of prisons)

Large, outside looks the same as supermax. Internal/external security high, contact with others limited. Holds most of the serious offenders in the state that can’t handle themselves in medium security. Death rows.

Medium Security Prisons (1/4 of prisons)

High external security, less restrictive internal security. More program opportunities. Visitations less restricted and can leave sometimes for work. Engaged in industrial work (makes license plates)

Minimum Security Prisons (1/2 of prisons)

Relaxed external/internal. Lower level felony offenders. More programs and usually hold prisoners for short times (close to release). Can hold all levels of offenders. Escape risk are never allowed.

Correctional Quackery

The use of treatment interventions that are based on neither: existing knowledge of the causes of crime and existing knowledge of what programs have been shown to change offenders behavior.

Correctional system continues to be aided by?

Policy makers’ use of faulty information about 1) crime, 2) the desires of the American public, and 3) the efficacy of incarceration as a crime control strategy.

What is the deepest fear of crime?

Stranger-to-stranger violent victimization

What are the 3 misconceptions about the nature of crime and how has it expanded the use of incarceration?

1) Increases in the “fear of crime” among public reflects increases in the objective probability of being victimized. Addresses the fears of the voters. 2) Low-level offenders will graduate to violent offenders without stiff criminal sanction. 3) Chronic, life-course persistent offending can be predicted using variables that are given the most weight in crj processing.

Superpredator

Believed to overtake everyone in the 2000s.

American’s fear of crime is to a greater degree determined by their level of exposure to what?

News media

Political Initiative

The number of speeches, statements, and policy initiatives pertaining to crime made by federal officials and reported in mass media.

Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” Antidrug Campaign

Message being sent to kids/parents that drug use is a gateway offense that opens the door to full spectrum of criminal behavior for youths.

Categorical Contagion (Zimring & Hawkins)

Citizens come to fear many forms of crime because they imagine them all being committed by extremely violent protagonists.

There is no evidence of a progression of increasing severity in the offenses committed over the length of criminal career.

True

Selective Incapacitation

Giving longer prison sentences to a small, high risk group of repeat/dangerous offenders. Giving lighter sentences to low risk offenders.

Selective Incapacitation framework punishes offenders for crimes they have yet to commit.

True

Level of Service Inventory (LSI-R)

Provide a more accurate picture of which offenders are at low, medium, or high risk to offend. 54 items.

What is the only correctional philosophy that obligates the state to be concerned with the offender’s needs?

Rehabiliative ideal

Deterrence Theory

Relies on the assumption that criminal behavior can be controlled through formal penalties. Assumes offenders exercise rational judgment and aware of costs benefits.

Endogeneity Problem

When assessing the effect of prison on crime rates - that increases in crime is result in increases in prison population.

Concentrated Disadvantage

Intersection of economic deprivation and family disruption concentrated within racial groups in society, long-term unemployment, and stingy social polices that undermine levels of social support for citizens.

What are alternatives to incarceration?

Probation & parole supervision, intensive supervision, electronic monitoring, short-term boot camp, home confinement, etc.

Gresham Sykes Pains of Imprisonment

Deprivation of liberty, goods/services, heterosexual relations, and security

Ban the Box

Civil rights movement advocating removal of criminal record checkbox on job applications. Regulate how and when an employer can consider this information (can’t ask before a conditional offer of employment).

4 Sources of Correctional Quackery

1) Failure to use research design programs. 2) Failure to follow approriate assessment & classification practices. 3) Failure to use effective treatment models. 4) Failure to evaluate what we do.

Closed Institutions

Separated from outside environment and sometimes unaffected by those environments. Correctional institutions are also said to be partially closed institutions.