The earliest correctional agencies in the Western world developed almost 900 years ago when King Henry II of England built county jails for the temporary detention of debtors and those who had committed minor offenses. In the 15th century, houses of corrections or workhouses (another English innovation) were aimed at forcing the idle poor (i.e., vagrants, beggars, and delinquents) to work off debts while in confinement. The English also used prison hulks, or decommissioned Navy ships, to house convicts while floating at anchor in the Thames River.
In the United States, the first correctional agencies, county jails, developed in the 17th century. In 1818, the Pennsylvania legislature authorized construction of two new prisons, the Western Penitentiary near Pittsburgh and the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. The penitentiary concept was designed to isolate miscreants and provide them with a place to do penitence, pastoral counseling, and reasonable discipline that would help them correct antisocial behavior. The Western Penitentiary was completed in 1826 and was in use until demolished in 1880. A new facility was constructed in 1882 and is still in use (the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh). The Eastern State Penitentiary was finished by 1829 and became a model for prisons in a number of states and in several European countries. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania closed the facility in 1971, 142 years after it admitted its first inmate.
From these early efforts, a vast complex of correctional agencies has emerged across the United States. These range across security levels from probation in the community to super maximum security prisons. Between these two extremes, there are many different kinds of institutions with varying levels of security and differing types of confinement. This entry discusses these various correctional agencies in some detail from the least secure to the most.
Community Correctional Agencies
The largest correctional agencies are the more than 2,000 state- or county-run probation offices entrusted with supervising people convicted of both misdemeanors and felonies, while they remain in the community. These agencies employ more than 100,000 probation officers and other administrative staff. The first use of probation began with the volunteer services of John Augustus in Massachusetts, a local businessman who in 1841 accepted his first probation client. Over an 18-year period, Augustus bailed out and supervised approximately 2,000 probationers, helping them get jobs and establishing themselves in the community. Recognizing Augustus’s achievements, Massachusetts formalized probation in 1859, a year after his death, creating the nation’s first paid probation officers. Based on the model that Augustus pioneered, the practice of probation spreads rapidly around the country.
Probation allows an offender to remain in the community for the duration of his or her sentence under supervision by an officer of the court. While on probation, the offender is required to comply with whatever conditions and rules the court imposes. Probation can be a standalone sentence but typically involves suspension of a term of incarceration in return for the promise of good behavior in the community under the supervision of a probation officer. If the rules are violated or the probationer commits another offense, probation may be revoked, which means that the contract is terminated and the original sentence of imprisonment is enforced. While on probation, clients are typically enrolled in social service programs to help them deal with the problems that resulted in their criminal convictions. This might include anger management, drug counseling, education programs, and the like.
The United States has approximately 2,000 adult probation agencies. More than half are associated with a state-level agency. State-run probation allows uniform standards of policy making, recruitment, training, and personnel management to be applied to probation practices throughout the state. Coordination with the state department of corrections and with the parole service is also facilitated by state-run, or centralized, probation models. In the remaining states, probation is primarily a local responsibility. In these jurisdictions, state offices are accountable only for providing financial support, setting standards, and arranging training courses.
About 30 states combine probation and parole supervision into a single agency. Since both probation and parole have the same set of goals and the same skills are required for the supervision of offenders, a combined system conserves scarce resources, requiring only one office, one set of directives, and one supervisory hierarchy.
In addition to local and state-run agencies, federal courts administer probation services. The U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services division provides probation and pretrial services to the U.S. District Courts. U.S. District Court judges control federal probation services, but the probation division’s administrative offices handle the recruitment and training of personnel.
In some jurisdictions, the private sector also administers probation agencies. The private supervision of misdemeanant probationers was first implemented in Florida in the 1970s under the supervision of the Salvation Army Misdemeanant Program. At its peak, Salvation Army Misdemeanant Program employed 200 counselors in 37 counties and supervised 14,000 clients a month. As of 2018, probation agencies in about 10 states (e.g., Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Connecticut) still use privatized probation services for low-risk offenders.
Intermediate Sanctions
In addition to traditional services, modern probation agencies dispense a range of intermediate sanctions. These can include intensive probation, financial restitution, community service, house arrest, and electronic monitoring. Intermediate sanctions allow judges to match the severity of punishment with the severity of the crime. They are more intrusive than traditional probation but less invasive and stigmatizing than an incarceration sentence.
Intermediate sanctions fall along a continuum ranging from the least intrusive (e.g., fines, community service) to the most intrusive (e.g., house arrest, electronic monitoring, placement in a residential community-based facility). It is also possible to combine a variety of intermediate sanctions into a single sentence. Clients in an intensive probation program may be, for example, assigned to house arrest and placed on electronic monitoring. Other offenders may be sentenced to a short period of confinement before they begin their probation sentence. This is referred to as split sentencing or shock probation and is intended to shock offenders into conformity after briefly experiencing prison life. Residential confinement is a form of confinement that takes place prior to imprisonment (halfway-in) or following imprisonment (halfway-back). Boot camp programs are also perceived as intermediate sanctions.
Some probation agencies operate group homes, halfway houses, and work release programs that provide residential services for probationers who are allowed to live in the community while receiving treatment services ranging from drug counseling to cognitive behavior therapy. These facilities include both governmental and privately administered programs. One popular approach is referred to as the therapeutic community, a therapy program that aims to refocus or resocialize the resident and uses the program’s entire community (including other residents and staff) as active components of treatment. Residents learn the techniques needed to develop personal responsibility, which can eventually lead them to socially productive lives.
County Correctional Agencies: Jails
Jails had their origin in medieval England, where they were initially conceived of as a place for detaining suspected offenders until they could be tried and punished. Over time, jails gradually evolved to serve the dual purposes of detention and punishment. Early jails were catchall institutions that held not only criminal offenders awaiting trial but also vagabonds, debtors, the mentally ill, and assorted others. Inmates were not segregated by age, gender, or seriousness of offense. The most common reason for locking people up in jails was unpaid debts, a practice that guaranteed the poor could never earn the money they owed.
The first colonial jails were established in Massachusetts and Virginia, but it was Pennsylvania jails, established by reformer William Penn in the 17th century, that later became the model for other states. In 1773, the Walnut Street Jail was constructed in Philadelphia. In the Walnut Street Jail, prisoners were employed at hard labor in the institution and taken out in public during the day to repair and clean streets and highways. The assumption was that hard work would build discipline and aid reform.
The modern local county jail is a correctional agency with a dual purpose. First, it is used to detain people before trial who cannot make or afford bail or those who fall under mandatory arrest statutes who cannot be released in order to protect their safety or the safety of others. Someone arrested for driving while intoxicated, for example, might remain overnight or longer in a jail for his or her protection, as well as the protection of the general public. Jails also hold convicted inmates sentenced to short terms (generally a year or less) for petty offenses, such as simple assault or petit larceny. Jails are usually administered by the county sheriff but are sometimes managed on a regional basis or, in a few cases, by the state or federal government.
There are a number of models used to administer jail agencies. Some cities and counties separate detention and incarceration functions. In New Hampshire and Massachusetts, for example, a house of corrections holds convicted misdemeanants and a county jail holds pretrial detainees. Four states have full operational responsibility for jails; these include Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, and except for five locally operated jails, Alaska.
A widely used alternative to local or state control is regional or multicounty arrangements. Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas were the first states to adopt regional jails. This arrangement typically exists when a jurisdiction with an adequate jail is willing to contract with neighboring cities and counties to house prisoners on a per diem basis, or when a group of local governments decides that no existing facility is adequate and chooses to build a new regional jail or detention center. Local governments may decide to specialize and house different populations, such as juveniles, females, pretrial detainees, or convicted felons awaiting transportation to state prisons.
Some states provide subsidies to county facilities. Almost 60% of states provide technical assistance to local governments to address jail issues, and about 50% provide training for jail personnel. In addition, some subsidy programs assist jails in complying with state standards and in making capital improvements ordered by courts.
There is a wide range of jail facilities. Large urban centers routinely maintain jails holding more than 1,000 inmates. In contrast, small, rural jails might hold fewer than 50 inmates. Each has its own set of challenges. Rural jails, for example, typically provide few programs, rarely have adequate staffing, and are less likely to have satisfactory suicide prevention policies in place. In contrast, urban jails must deal with overcrowding, violence, inmate sexual victimization, contraband being brought into the jail, and even staff corruption.
As of June 2016, about 740,000 inmates were being held in jails, most of whom are pretrial detainees held in the nation’s largest counties. After decades of steep increases in U.S. jail populations, inmate levels have begun to stabilize and even decline. Jail incarceration rate declined from a peak of 259 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents at midyear 2007 to 229 per 100,000 at midyear 2016.
Secure Correctional Agencies: Prisons
Secure correctional agencies oversee the intake, incarceration, and release of the more than 1.5 million men and women sentenced to a felony prison term. There are 50 separate state departments of corrections as well as one for the District of Columbia. The systems are difficult to compare and evaluate because of differences in ideology, structure, and programs. The quality of previous correctional leaders, the resources available, and the volume of inmates has largely shaped what takes place within each independent correctional agency.
In addition to state prisons, The Federal Bureau of Prisons oversees more than 120 correctional institutions (in addition to 13 privately operated facilities), six regional offices, a central office in Washington, DC, two staff training centers, and 26 community corrections offices. The Federal Bureau of Prisons is responsible for the custody and care of more than 210,000 federal offenders, of whom 81% are confined in bureau-operated correctional institutions or detention centers. The remaining offenders are confined through agreements with state and local governments or through contracts with privately operated community correctional centers, detention centers, and juvenile facilities.
Types of Prison Facilities
Both federal and state agencies maintain a variety of correctional facilities. Minimum-security prisons, medium-security prisons, maximum-security prisons, and supermax prisons are described below.
Minimum-Security Prisons
Minimum-security prisons house nondangerous and nonviolent offenders. They have relaxed perimeter security, sometimes without fences or any other form of external security. Inmates work, go to school, and take vocational classes. They are often permitted to work at outside jobs, such as on road crews or doing exterior maintenance. These facilities have generous visitation policies with contact visitation, sometimes including even short home furloughs. They offer a safer environment for both staff and inmates than do other types of prisons.
Medium-Security Prisons
Medium-security prisons house more dangerous or repeat offenders. They are typically built with single or double fencing and have guarded towers or closed-circuit television monitoring, sally-port entrances, and zonal security systems to control inmate movement within the institution. In medium-security prisons, the emphasis is on controlled access to programs and internal facilities. Prisoners assigned to medium custody can be locked down in emergencies, but it is expected that they will participate in industrial and educational activities within the prison. The rationale behind medium-security facilities is that a good deal of freedom of movement and the availability of programs within a technologically secured perimeter can help inmates work toward a successful release.
Maximum-Security Prisons
Maximum-security prisons house dangerous and repeat offenders. They are generally large and imposing physical structures. Some of the older maximum-security facilities in the United States are surrounded by stone walls with guard towers at strategic places. These walls may be 25 or more feet high. Newer maximum-security facilities, however, tend to be surrounded by several fences (including some that may be electrified) because of the expense of stone walls.
Supermax Prisons
State and federal correctional agencies have created the so-called supermax prisons to house their most dangerous inmates. More than 40 states have either built supermax prisons or added high-security units to existing facilities to contain problem prisoners. More than 25,000 male and female inmates are now housed in 57 supermax facilities across the nation. These inmates include antiabortion activist and “Olympic Park Bomber” Eric Rudolph and terrorists such as Richard Reid, Terry Nichols, Zacarias Moussaoui, and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The most famous supermax prison is the 484-bed United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, CO. Administrative Maximum Facility has the most sophisticated security measures in the United States, including 168 video cameras and 1,400 electronically controlled gates. Inside the cells, all furniture is immovable and virtually indestructible. Beds, desks, and television stands are made of cement. All potential weapons, including toilet seats, toilet handles, and soap dishes, have been removed. The cement walls are capable of withstanding 5,000 pounds of pressure, and steel bars are placed so that they crisscross every 8 in. inside the walls of the institution. Cells are angled so that prisoners can neither see each other nor the outside scenery. This cuts down on communication and denies inmates a sense of location, to prevent escapes.
References:
- Alexander, M. (2012). The new Jim Crow. New York, NY: The New Press.
- Rothman, D. J. (1980). Conscience and convenience: The asylum and its alternatives in progressive America. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
Websites
- Federal Bureau of Prisons. Retrieved from https://www.bop.gov/
- National Institute of Justice: Corrections. Retrieved from https://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections
- Pew Foundation: Prisons. Retrieved from http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/search?q=Prisons&sortBy=relevance &sortOrder=asc&page=1