Corrections final study guide

What is the inmate code?

An informal, unwritten set of rules guiding prisoner behavior, emphasizing solidarity against staff, loyalty to other inmates, and self-reliance

Norm and values of the inmate code

• Don’t interfere with inmate interests - never snitch on another inmate

• Don’t quarrel with fellow inmates – do your own time

• Maintain yourself – don’t show weakness, complain, or whine

• Don’t exploit inmates – don’t go back on your words

• Don’t trust the guards or the things they stand for

What does the term institutionalization mean?

describes how prisoners are shaped and transformed by the

institutional environments in which they live.

According to Sykes, What is the prison subculture a response to?

Arises as a collective response to the "pains of imprisonment," which are the severe psychological and social deprivations inmates experience. It is a coping mechanism aimed at mitigating these losses and reducing the rigors of confinement.

State and explain the adaptive roles in prison subculture.

• Doing time—They serve their terms with the least amount of suffering and the greatest amount of comfort. They avoid trouble, find activities to fill their days, and generally do what they think is necessary to survive and get out as soon as possible.

• Gleaning—Take advantage of prison programs to better themselves by using libraries, taking courses, vocational training, and attending school.

• Jailing – They cut themselves off from the outside and try to construct a life within the prison. Typically, they have spent much of their lives in institutional settings and identify little with the values of a free society.

• Disorganized criminal – inmates who cannot develop the other three roles. Those suffering from mental or physical disabilities have difficulty functioning within the prison society. Frequently manipulated by others. They adjust poorly to prison life, develop emotional disorders, attempt suicide, and violate prison rules.

Living conditions

• The dramatic increase in the correctional population, coupled with institutions that function at or beyond full capacity, is known as overcrowding.

• It has been widely accepted that overcrowded conditions in both jails and prisons are the result of criminal justice policy, not of increased crime rates.

• Overcrowded conditions are especially concerning because they create a dangerous environment that puts correctional staff and incarcerated people at risk.

• When freedom of movement is restricted, and people are given longer periods of confinement without access to recreational activities, they can fill their time with violence and deviant behavior, creating an environment that is not conducive to reentry.

Disciplinary Actions

• Assaults – inmates attacking one another or staff

• Prison gangs can form

• One of the disciplinary actions against prisoners is solitary confinement along with others, including losing privileges such as mail, visits, commissary, recreational time, and erasing “good time” if the state has it.

Solitary confinement

• Secure housing units (SHUs)

• Special housing units

• Restricted housing units

• Intensive management units

• Solitary confinement refers to the practice in which people are isolated in closed cells measuring between 6 × 9 or 8 × 10 feet for upwards of 22 to 24 hours each day, rendering them almost entirely free of human contact for days, weeks, months, or, in extreme circumstances, years.

Evidence suggests that solitary confinement can negatively impact the psychology of a person and that exposure to such conditions poses risks to mental health.

For example, time spent in solitary confinement can contribute to perceptual distortions, hallucinations, hypersensitivity, and paranoia and cause a litany of other psychopathological conditions such as anxiety, nervousness, anger, violent fantasies, heart palpitations, and trouble sleeping.

A class-action lawsuit was filed against the Bureau Of Prisons and officials at US Penitentiary Administrative Maximum, also known as ADX Florence Supermax Prison, located in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near Florence, Colorado.

In 2012 revealed that individuals developed severe psychological problems and began to engage in self-harm after years of solitary confinement at ADX Florence.

Diet and nutrition

• Little research exists on the diets and nutrition of the food served in prisons.

• Cook et al. (2015) conducted a study examining the menu served to incarcerated individuals over a 28-day cycle in a county jail in Georgia.

• Their study concluded that incarcerated individuals receive less than two-thirds of the recommended amount of magnesium, potassium, vitamins A, D, and E, and an underrepresentation of vegetables, fruits, and dairy, affecting their overall health and well-being.

• The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that incarcerated people have a right to an adequate diet and that meals must be tailored to meet people’s religious and medical needs.

• Food services in state institutions vary dramatically and do not meet federal standards.

• Prisons do not adhere to regular health inspections because they are not considered to be food establishments.

• The American Correctional Association (ACA) recommends that prisons serve three meals a day; it does not require this.

• It is not uncommon for incarcerated people to be served only twice.

• Incarcerated people have complained for years that prison meals are not sufficient, but administrators continue to feed them at the lowest cost possible.

• In some institutions, people are served prison loaf, also known as nutraloaf.

• Nutraloaf, as its name implies, is a nutritionally adequate combination of the ingredients of a regular meal, mashed together and served as a loaf.

• For example, nutraloaf can consist of hot dogs, potatoes, beans, and often use reheated leftovers.

• It is unclear how many prisons utilize nutraloaf.

Psychological Effects

• Incarcerated individuals may adopt strategies to survive in prison that are unsuitable for life outside of prison.

• Some strategies include losing empathy for others, isolating oneself, becoming emotionless, heightened mistrust, and detachment from the outside world.

Few people are entirely unchanged by the prison experience.

• The range of effects also included the persistent effects of untreated mental illness, the long-term legacies of improperly addressed developmental disabilities, and the pathological consequences of incarceration experienced by individuals released directly from long-term incarceration to the free world.

• Unresolved or unaddressed trauma and physical and mental health issues before release negatively affect an individual’s successful reentry.

• Of importance is that many severe conditions, such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, often go undetected due to the lack of proper screening.

Health

Incarcerated populations face a greater risk of sickness and death because healthcare in jails and prisons is of limited or poor quality.

Give three main characteristics of prison programs.

What is the mission of prisons in dealing with prisoners?

What is the dual role of correctional officers?

 Graded ranks—captain, lieutenant, officer

 Pay differentials, job titles

 Chain of command

 Preservice training programs for officers

What sanctions exist in the disciplinary process of prisoners?

segregation, loss of privileges, loss of good time credit

What types of violence occur in prisons?

 Prisoner–Prisoner Violence

 Prison gangs (racial/ethnic)

 Identify members, segregate housing and work assignments, no contact visits, etc.

 Protective custody- special management

 Prison rape- Prison Rape Elimination Act (Perpetrators,Victims)

 Victims of rape tend to be: First time, non-violent offenders, Crime against a minor, Physically weak, Effeminate inmates, Not affiliated with a gang, Snitches

 Prisoner–Officer Violence

 Situations requiring use of physical force: Breaking up a fight, Moving a prisoner to segregation

 Unexpected attacks: Missile thrown from an upper tier, Verbal threats or taunts, “Accidental” fall

 Officer–Prisoner Violence

 “Goon squads”

 Gladiator days at: Corcoran

Give three issues that exist with elderly prisoners.

How has the increase in mentally ill prisoners changed prisons?

Give three considerations/implications of working with long-term prisoners.

How is PTSD recognized in prisoners?

Define parole.

What is reentry?

• The process that describes an individual’s journey back into society after

serving jail or prison.

• Complete sentence in prison

• Parole

• Probation

What are the ways in which a person can be released from prison?

How does the United States measure correctional failure?

Recidivism

What are the procedure and release criteria for releasing a prisoner?

What are five problems that confront parolees upon release?

• Finding a place to live

• Securing formal identification

• Reestablishing family and parental ties

• The daunting challenge of finding employment

• Even more traumatic, having a criminal record

Upon release onto parole, what are the conditions of release? What does it mean if they go through revocation?

What are the four foundations of correctional law? Explain each of them.

The 4th amendment guides what procedures in prisons? What are the two primary types of searches in prisons?