I'll be brave...

[gijanetexas]

So, when I start my Master's in Criminal Justice this fall (I hope), I'll learn all this?

My opinion is that custody and corrections basically works when staff watch inmates.

The BOP used to be good at that back in the day (Alcatraz), but now we make inmates pseudo-staff (quasi-staff) to save money, they have privacy, so that has gone out the door/window/garage.

Also, in the opinion of a crusty, old, deceased CO I knew as Uncle Spike (think your perverted Uncle you had growing up, but I worshiped the ground the man walked on), the modern corrections is good for the inmates (direct supervision, or "management by walking around" BOP style) but highly stresssful on the staff.

Inmates get everything handed to them now, he told me, so they have no incentive for them to respect the staff.

[ranchhound]

Your crusty old uncle is right. The inmates get everything handed to them so they dont earn it or learn anything from there time. They look at us as waiters and bus boys and expect us to cater to them because we put them there. They dont (and wont) learn what they did was wrong or how to survive on the outside with dignity and respect. ( I know, preachin to the choir!)

[GUNNER]

Originally Posted by gijanetexas

So, when I start my Master's in Criminal Justice this fall (I hope), I'll learn all this?

My opinion is that custody and corrections basically works when staff watch inmates.

The BOP used to be good at that back in the day (Alcatraz), but now we make inmates pseudo-staff (quasi-staff) to save money, they have privacy, so that has gone out the door/window/garage.

Also, in the opinion of a crusty, old, deceased CO I knew as Uncle Spike (think your perverted Uncle you had growing up, but I worshiped the ground the man walked on), the modern corrections is good for the inmates (direct supervision, or "management by walking around" BOP style) but highly stresssful on the staff.

Inmates get everything handed to them now, he told me, so they have no incentive for them to respect the staff.

Absolutely true. In addition to that they have taken all the authority away from the Officers, so now when an Officer says anything to an inmate they immediately want to see a LT. Guess what, the LT will always run as hard as he can to please that inmate to.

[Crosstimbers Okie]

Prepare yourself for the thug huggers. Read Governing Prisons by John Diiulio.

Recomended Reading

[Devenshack]

When I was down in Glynco, we had the crusty old instructor with 33 years in the Bureau. He asked the following:
"How many of you joined the bureau so you can beat Inmates with sticks?"
we all kind of laughed it off, he went on to say that is why he joined. Because thats how it used to be. Inmates did respect the staff. He said what we have now are challenging times because of inmate advocate groups and politicians trying to please the public outcry of unfair treatment.
If I try to sit back and be a free thinker, I dont know what is best. I imagine somewhere in the middle. Sure you cant just go around and beat people with sticks, because that would lead to more staff assaults. But at the same time, I dont think it is sucha great idea to cater to the inmates.
If you read the funny papers on sallyport it talks about how America has the highest prison population in the world. That the ratio of those in prison to the general population is the highest. At the same time, you hear of all the awful treatment that other countries give to their inmates. Maybe if time was harder to serve in the good old USA, there wouldnt be so many in Jails because they would have the fear of going. I imagine that there are some tough prison's in this country. Ones that Inmates dont get everything they need handed to hem on the silver platter, I just havent seen one yet.
The media has a lot to do with this though, you see movies like Lock Up and you think that all staff are dirty and the inmate is the hero in the movie. People feed into that and this is why we get the short end of the stick so many times.
I sit at the local hospital all the time and the nurses out there dont respect us. They see us as the bad guys because we make this "poor patient with medical issues" sit there chained to a bed. Somehow we are the bad guy on that one. We are asked to hide our weapons if we walk in the hallway. Yet when the local police are in the halls, they hide nothing. When some of the nurses are asked why they ask us to hide our weapons and the police arent. They reply "they are cops", I ask what we are and they just shy away at the question.
We surely do have the forgotton profession here. The one that when in a group of people, they all ask how it is inside. These are our friends, they are the ones that fear going to jail, not the inmates inside the system.

[Crosstimbers Okie]

I wonder. In the bad old days did they go around beating inmates for sport? Just for the Hell of it? Or, could there have been a little more to the story?

[Devenshack]

well, the instructor did seem a little crazy. Maybe that was his way of stress reduction.

[JCoffin]

I used to hate doing hospital covarge sometimes because the nurse would do the whole "Why do you pick on poor so & so" and "He is such a sweetie" yeah, let him watch your kids alone and see how sweet he is. I put up with it because its good OT.

[Devenshack]

well, it was good ot. haha
I still think it would be a great idea to print out the public information for each inmate sent out, that way when they ask, we can just hand the paper over to them so they know all the public information on them. They always ask why they are in prison, yet without the public information, ya never know what you can and cant say?

[Crosstimbers Okie]

He's sweet because he's ill and wants help. Wait 'till he's feeling a little better...