Chapter 6: Prisons

Introduction

  • Recidivism post-incarceration is high—more than two-thirds of individuals released will be back in prison within 6 years

  • Prisons are expensive—cost taxpayers almost $40 billion a year

  • Just deserts/incapacitation philosophy is dominant

  • Penal harm

  • Quality care and treatment remains a goal of modern corrections

To What Extent do Prisons Mirror the Larger Society?

  • Prison as a microcosm of larger society

  • Social organization and moral values of larger society

  • Prison as a distorted image

  • It magnifies and intensifies the forces and emotions of larger society

  • Commonly observed relationships between prison and society:

    • Poverty

    • Racial and gender discrimination

    • Violent crime

    • Mental illness

Inmate Populations

Age

  • Federal and state correctional authorities have jurisdiction over nearly 1,250,000 prisoners

  • 2020 saw a decrease in imprisonment for all ages

  • Black males aged 18-19 were 12.5 times as likely to be imprisoned as White males in the same age group

  • Females aged 18-19 had the highest imprisonment rate disparity between White inmates and other races

Biological Sex

  • Population is overwhelmingly male

  • Criminalization of abortion may prompt influx of females into the population

Race

  • Black citizens make up about 38 percent of the inmate population

  • Approximately 57 percent are White

  • Rates of incarceration have increased for White women and decreased for Black women

Offense Characteristics

  • State inmates by crime type (approximate figures)

  • 60% violent offenses

  • 14% drug offenses

  • 15% property offenses

  • 60% of males are sentenced for violent crimes, compared to 40% of females

Jurisdiction

Federal Bureau of Prisons

  • Federal BOP: established in 1930

  • Oversees:

    • 122 correctional institutions

    • 6 regional offices and a central office

    • 2 training centers

    • 22 residential reentry management centers

  • Responsible for almost 160,000 federal offenders

  • 91% of these are confined in an institution or detention center

  • Institutions vary in security and programming

  • ADX, U.S. penitentiaries, correctional institutions, medical centers, prison camps, detention centers, and metropolitan correctional centers

  • UNICOR prison industries

State Department of Corrections

  • 50 separate state departments of correction and 1 for the District of Columbia

  • Differences in ideology, structure, and programs among them

  • Variation in number and quality of institutions within each state

  • 1970s—state correctional administrators began to apply for institutional accreditation through the Commission on Accreditation of the American Correctional Association

  • Nearly all 50 states participate in accreditation, and 500 institutions have been or are in the process of accreditation

  • The accreditation process brought about a higher standard in training of correctional personnel and prison operations

Private Sector Involvement in Corrections

  • Today’s private sector provides:

    • Work programs and medical, education, and psychological services

    • Financing for facility construction

    • Management and operation of facilities

  • 26 states and the federal government use private corporations in some capacity

  • CoreCivic and GEO Group, Inc are the largest

  • Most common in southern and western regions

    • Mixed results on recidivism rate studies

Private Prisons

Operations

  • Staff have higher institutional commitment

  • Higher staff turnover when compared to BOP prisons

  • Inmates perceived worse services, sanitation, but same level of security and gang activity as in BOP prisons

  • Higher rates of misconduct documented

Cost Effectiveness

  • May not be as cost effective as originally believed

  • Inconclusive evaluation studies

  • Private institutions seem cheaper to build, but questions remain about quality of services

Categorization of Facilities

  • By biological sex—male and female facilities

  • By security level

    • Minimum

    • Medium

    • Maximum

    • Supermax

Security Levels

Minimum

  • Relaxed perimeter security

  • Sometimes without fences

  • Inmates typically have less than a year left to serve

  • Less-secure dormitory housing with communal bathrooms

  • Inmates may work on outside jobs

  • Generous visitation policies

Medium

  • Dormitory housing or double-bunked cells

  • Out of cells most of day doing work and programming

  • Single or double fencing with guarded towers

  • CCTV, sally-port entrances, and zonal security

  • Controlled access to programming

Maximum

  • Large physical plants

  • Several fences or stone walls

  • Close and maximum security

  • Segregation—isolation and administrative

  • Individual cells with sliding doors controlled externally

  • Limited/restricted movement

Super Max

  • Based on the isolation of incarcerated individuals

  • 30+ are state run; 1 federal

  • House high profile inmates

  • Specialized room and furniture construction

  • Limited contact with staff and other inmates

    • Security housing units (SHUs)

    • Administrative detention

    • Disciplinary segregation

  • Violence

  • Madrid v. Gomez (1995)—excessive and unnecessary force used against inmates

Architectural Design for Modern Prisons

  • Radical—spokes and central hub

  • Telephone-pole—long central corridor with cross-arms

  • Courtyard—building corridors surrounded and face a courtyard

  • Campus—open design of complex of buildings surrounded by a fence

  • More than half of U.S. prisons are less than 25 years old

  • many do not look like traditional prison facilities

  • Use of technology for security

  • “Ethical architecture”

  • Personal living space

  • General prison space

Correctional Administration: How are Prisons Run?

  • Institutional organization

  • Warden or superintendent

  • Assistant or associate wardens or superintendents

    • Responsible for operations and programs; may include management services or industrial and agricultural services

  • Middle managers

  • Line staff

Establishment of Policy

  • Wardens determine policy for own institution

    • Major changes must be cleared by central office

  • Planning

    • Wardens must develop goals and methods for their achievement

    • Problems of crisis-centered management

  • Civil suits

    • Much time and money is spent responding to civil suits

    • Intimidating and draining on resources

    • Court decisions may impose new procedures, standards, and personnel requirements on the system

      • Facilitation of changes may be expensive, time-consuming, and difficult for administrators

Institutional Monitoring and Staff Development

  • Administrators must know what is happening in their facility

  • Requires good communication with inmate population

  • Staff development:

    • Develop training for staff

    • Make necessary changes in job assignments

  • Fiscal management

    • Institutional budgeting