Boot camp programs have the potential to reduce institutional crowding and costs, provided they are large enough. This assumes they target offenders who would otherwise have served a longer sentence in another institution, and keep enough participants from returning to correctional facilities. Some boot camps offer rehabilitative programs such as drug and alcohol treatment, life skills training, vocational education, therapy, and general education classes. Some also provide intensive community supervision after release. For example, New York s "shock incarceration" takes a therapeutic approach with six months of intensive incarceration in a military style boot camp that also focuses on treatment and developing life skills. Six months of intensive community supervision follows graduation.( http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/shockny.pdf)
Boot camp goals were three fold: reduce recidivism, prison populations, and operating costs. However, as fast as boot camps were proliferating across the United States, research studies were showing that boot camps were not reaching their goals for at least three reasons. First, when prisoners were asked to volunteer for boot camp as a back-door strategy to reduce prison crowding, many prisoners chose not to volunteer because states were also ordering the early release of nonviolent and drug- offending inmates, the target population for most boot camp programs.
Inmates recognized that volunteering for boot camp as a way to reduce their sentence was unnecessary. Early release of nonviolent and drug offending inmates meant inmates could avoid the regimentation that boot camp demanded. Second, while military drill and ceremony and a daily schedule of hard labor and physical training were common to most boot camps and appealed to the general public, there was no conceptual model guiding implementation. Observers soon discovered that rigorous physical activity only produced physically fit offenders and did little to reduce short- and long-term recidivism, prison populations, and operating costs Third, there was no agreement on the role of treatment or aftercare. Some boot camp programs included them; most did not. Researchers showed that without treatment and aftercare, the benefits of boot camp were short-lived. (Schmalleger, Frank.)
- What is the best solution for jail overcrowding?
Some solutions for jail overcrowding are front-end, trap-door, side-door, and back-end strategies; Intermediate sanctions, sometimes referred to as front-end programs or strategies. Front-end programs are options for initial sentences that are more restrictive than traditional probation but less restrictive than jail or prison. They are usually designed to limit the number of people who go to prison. In front-end programs, judges commonly sentence offenders directly to one or a combination of intermediate sanctions before requiring incarceration. Back-end programs are reduced restrictions for offenders who have made progress in compliance and treatment. In back-end programs, offenders are moved from higher to lower levels of control to complete the final phase of their sentences. For example, the state department of corrections may move an offender from prison to remote-location monitoring. In between the two is what some call trap-door or side-door programs. These programs function as safety valves or emergency release options. For example, in November 2006, the Arkansas Board of Corrections invoked its Emergency Powers Act to allow early release for 687 prison inmates. (Schmalleger, Frank).
There are other ways that we can reduce prison overcrowding by Invest in community punishments that work and command the confidence of the community. Divert mentally ill people from the courts and into treatment so they can get the help they need to keep from committing more crimes in the future. Keep utilizing the drug treatment programs in the community so the person can get treatment, because most drug addicts commit crimes to support their habits.
- Describe the challenges facing women who work as correctional officers.
Women working in male dominated professions, female correctional officers face special problems and barriers many of which are rooted in sexism. Prisons are nontraditional workplaces for women. As a consequence, female correctional officers especially those working in men’s prisons often find themselves in a confusing situation. As one author explains it, “On the one hand, to be female is to be different, an outsider. On the other hand, female guards have much in common with and are sympathetic to their male peers as a result of their shared job experience.” (Schmalleger, Frank.)
Resistance by inmates, for female correctional officers was not as prevalent as staff resistance. Male inmates’ initial objections to having women in maximum security housing units usually focused on privacy, although some simply objected to women giving them orders. ()
More challenges that associated with female correctional officers was inappropriate relationships with male inmates often put in their male correctional officers in danger. There were some physical restraints that female officers didn't have work in a male institution. It was easy for the average female officer to get overpowered by male inmate, causing her to be raped, beaten or killed.
Reference
Schmalleger, Frank. Corrections in the 21st Century, 4th Edition. McGraw-Hill
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/shockny.pdf
http://nicic.gov/pubs/1991/009504.pdf
