3 Contemporary Issues Impacting Correctional Management - Essay Sample

Introduction

Every day, correctional managers are faced with several problems. These issues have, recently, quickly increased in number. Some of the issues include sexual assault, prison gangs, officer corruption, and overcrowding. Indeed, these issues negatively impact correctional management. This paper will examine three contemporary issues. Further, it will highlight their impact on prison administration and conclude by providing solutions to each problem.

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Prison Gang

Also known as security threat groups, these are inmate organizations within the prison systems whose inception serves a purpose, commonly to yield power. Indeed, almost every prison in the world has a gang. Young inmates join these gangs for various reasons. Firstly, prisoners join the cliques for brotherhood. Most of the groups function as an extension of the families the inmates had outside the jail. These families provide identity. One, therefore, feels that being part of a gang accords them a level of status and personality, which is not achievable without a clique (Wood et al.,2014). Additionally, gangs will provide companionship, which the new member probably had before incarceration. Secondly, gangs offer protection. Inmates, consequently, join these groups to avoid being caught in the crossfires between two rival groups. Wood et al., (2014), further note that most prisoners believe that being in a gang is safer than not identifying with any group. Some inmates also join gangs solely for criminal activity. Irrefutably, most prison gangs influence the narcotic business happening outside the prison walls (Wood et al., 2014). These individuals will, therefore, engage in narcotics, and other illegal activities, to benefit from the group's profit.

In most jails, corrections officials reckon that gangs remain one of the formidable issues forcing changes in organizational strategies. Most penitentiaries have adopted policies to curb these organizations. For instance, restrictive housing has been adapted by prisons in California (Pyrooz, 2016). Here, gang members are removed from the general population and placed in restrictive houses for indeterminate periods. This inmates from disruptive behaviors, which could trigger inter-gang violence. This method has proven effective. An Arizona study among different reformatories concluded that segregation of gang members resulted in a 25% decrease in gang-related violence (Pyrooz, 2016).

Additionally, some prisons resort to total prison lockdowns and solitary confinement. In lockdowns, convicts are confined to their cells for a determined period. Solitary confinement entails an inmate living in a single cell without meaningful human interactions. While they have been helpful, these methods are not comparable to restrictive housing since violence almost always erupts after the lockdown. Besides, solitary confinement results in damaging psychological effects (Frost & Monteiro, 2016).

On a national scale, and across the world, prison gangs have made the management of correctional facilities almost impossible. Thanks to these groups, prisons now seem to be centers of organized crimes rather than rehabilitation. Thus, governments have passed legislation seeking to aid the disruption of the growth of prison gangs. For instance, Washington state, in 2008, adopted the 'Gang Involvement Among Incarcerated Offenders' program. Through this, prison departments in the country facilitated the establishment of intervention programs. Offenders seeking to opt-out of gangs are provided with services like preparation to obtain high school equivalency certificates and gang tattoo removal ( Washington State Legislature, 2008). Furthermore, the Illinois Street Gang Terrorism Omnibus Prevention Act prohibits a correctional officer from knowingly furthering the activities of a gang, except when facilitating undercover investigations. Violating this section is a class C felony which is punishable by life imprisonment (National Center of Governance, 2019).

To alleviate prison gangs, decreasing the size of American prisons will suffice. Economics reckons that groupings are a response to prison size. Indeed, prison growth causes diversity; each inmate has an idea of what is the acceptable prison behavior. Consequently, norms furthering social behaviors in prisons will not be practical with large numbers. This makes penitentiaries more chaotic. To bring peace, prison gangs emerged. Each gang established norms that its members would abide. However, these gangs, which were initially moral custodians, morphed into criminal gangs.

Since overcrowding is the underlying cause of prison gangs, decreasing the number of prisoners is key in the fight against prison organizations. This will be achieved in two ways. First, governments should lower incarceration rates. Moreover, imprisonment periods should be reduced. Secondly, both federal and state governments should build more prisons and redistribute the current prisoners. Therefore, each prison would accommodate fewer inmates. Reduction in prison size is justified by studies which have shown that gang culture is rampant in larger prisons like those in Texas, but negligible in prison systems with few incarcerates like Wyoming. Besides, in California, gangs were non-existent when it had a small inmate population (Skarbek & Michaluk, 2015).

References

Frost, N., & Monteiro, C. (2016). Administrative segregation in US prisons. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice. National Gang Center (2019). Related Legislation by Subject (Laws Updated Through June 2019). Retrieved from https://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/Legislation/WeaponsWa

National Center of Governance (2019). Related Legislation by Subject (Laws Updated Through June 2019). Retrieved from https://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/Legislation/Weapons

Pyrooz, D. C. (2016). Gang affiliation and restrictive housing in US prisons. Restrictive housing in the US: Issues, challenges, and future directions, 117-164.

Skarbek, D., & Michaluk, C. (2015). To end prison gangs, it's time to break up the largest prisons. Retrieved from https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/end-prison-gangs-break-largest-prisons-000034/

Washington State Legislature (2008). Retrieved from https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=72.09.670

Wood, J. L., Alleyne, E., Mozova, K., & James, M. (2014). Predicting involvement in prison gang activity: Street gang membership, social and psychological factors. Law and Human Behavior, 38(3), 203.