The American Corrections System

American Corrections System
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American Corrections System
Local politics affect jail administration through fiscal policies and political conservatism. Political pressures from local politicians often result in less than sound fiscal measures. For instance, although pretrial release programs are less resource-intensive and help avoid prison overcrowding, the public is opposed to the same due to fear of crime, thereby leading to overcrowding. Jail confinement is widely implemented even for misdemeanant offenders and probation violators despite the lack of funds to expand jail capacity and house all inmates. Political influence should not be as extensive because it makes jail a revenue-draining institution more than a crime control service. Jails have been turned into a potent electoral issue, and it has become challenging to limit the influence of politically sensitive offices such as police chief on local facilities. Employees in correctional facilities make up a significant proportion of political patronage for elected officials to gain political mileage, especially during political campaigns when political appointees stop administering the jail and start soliciting funds and votes for their superiors (Clear et al., 2016). Local politics often hinder good correctional practices and rarely address the pertinent issues affecting jail administration.
Some of the unique needs of jail detainees have included mental health problems, substance dependency, medical needs, and legal needs. A majority of offenders have a history of mental problems, and the number of inmates considered to be mentally ill is growing. Unfortunately, most jails lack the resources to provide health services to mentally ill offenders even when the stress of confinement exacerbates their condition. It is not uncommon for these offenders to be abused by other inmates, misunderstood by correctional officers, and left untreated by professional personnel. Similarly, many offenders with a history of substance abuse are also left to deal with the effects of withdrawal, resulting in high suicide cases. Only a small proportion of prisoners are treated for their withdrawal symptoms since most symptoms are generally viewed as inconveniences that do not require treatment. Detainees also have many unaddressed medical needs, from minor injuries to major injuries incurred during their crime and its aftermath. Half the jails do not perform routine medical checkups, and even those requiring prisoners to pay for some of the care they receive. Moreover, pretrial detainees lack access to legal assistance. Studies indicate that people locked up in jail cannot prepare their defense because their attorneys are overworked and only partially pursue their cases (Clear et al., 2016). Detainees often spend long periods without seeing their attorney, thereby deeming their chances of receiving justice. These needs pose significant financial challenges for jail administrators: meeting the mental health problems, substance dependency, medical needs, and legal needs requires significant resources, which most jail administrations lack.
The advantage of preventative detention is that it ensures public safety by confining defendants who are considered dangerous and are likely to commit more crimes while awaiting trial. It also ensures that these defendants are present during the trial since a majority are a flight risk and never show up. At the same time, preventative detention is unconstitutional since the defendant is still innocent until proven guilty. Some theorists argue that the practice is impractical and potentially nefarious since it fails to benefit the suspected individual from the doubt. I would balance tensions between jail management and public safety by adopting probation approaches that help improve public safety. One way is by implementing effective supervision strategies where the most attention is given to high-risk cases, focusing on reducing those problems that are most likely to result in crime and steadily supporting crime-free behaviors (Clear et al., 2016). Another way is by setting supervision outcomes for clients to evaluate the effectiveness of the same and areas that need correction.
Some of the problems I would expect to encounter if I was in charge of providing rehabilitative programs in jail include issues to do with substance abuse, mental health problems, unruly behavior such as violence, insufficient resources to run specialized supervision programs, recidivism, and lack of trained personnel to provide adequate supervision. In addition to dealing with the drug substance, mental health, and behavioral issues among offenders, there is also the challenge of having sufficient resources to fund specialized programs, including hiring or training staff to provide appropriate supervision.
There is so much interest in probation today because of the increased emphasis on community justice, a concept that stresses reparation to the victim and the community. Amidst a restrictive capacity for housing all inmates, most of whom are first-time offenders, probation has emerged as a viable problem-solving strategy in place of adversarial procedures and a way to increase citizen involvement in crime reduction (Clear et al., 2016). Probation distinguishes itself from conventional bureaucratic procedures that are too rigid and unresponsive to local justice initiatives. It affects the correctional system by shifting away from imprisonment and corrective services like job training and education. Rather than directly imprisoning offenders, the correctional system is now working with the offender in their community, thereby transforming it from direct service to service brokerage. The model is widely used because it helps reduce overcrowding in jails and helps minimize the chances that an offender will commit a new offense, mainly through restriction of the probationer's activities and rigorous surveillance.
The presentence investigation report (PSI) affects accountability for the imposed sentence by providing essential background information about the offender. This information is verified, clarified, and examined by the probation officer, who provides a recommendation of the sentence based on his or her evaluation. Because the probation officer decides whether probation should be terminated based on the offender's response to supervision, a biased probation officer may give a stricter or lenient sentence recommendation than is necessary. Besides, supervision is often fraught with error and uncertainty since there are no standard solutions to the challenges faced by most probationers, most of whom are troubled and difficult to manage (Clear et al., 2016). The probation officer may find little sense of success since the rewards are insubstantial and much of the work entails several tasks that hardly relate to rehabilitation.
The investigative and supervisory functions of probation can be most effectively organized by rotating officers between investigating and supervising. Currently, some officers are designated exclusively to supervision while others to the investigation. Although this approach makes it easy to manage workers, it has resulted in inefficiencies such as poor liaison between the supervising officer and the investigating officer and concentration of the best staff members in PSI units despite the growing supervision caseloads (Clear et al., 2016). Rotating staff between the two functions will ensure that the supervising and investigating probation officers are completely familiar with the offender's case. There is equal distribution of officers between the two functions. The judges will likely respond positively to my proposal because it means that the person writing the PSI report sufficiently understands the offender and can therefore give a professional assessment of the case even if the probationer is convicted on new offenses. I also expect the department of corrections to support the idea since it ensures that the supervision function is not neglected at the expense of the investigative function. However, they may also point out that rotating staff can be cumbersome and time-intensive and may specialize solely in one task.
Given the two significant tasks of probation, officers should spend their time investigating the veracity...