In the United States
In the United States, there are many of prison and jails that house people that have committed a crime. This paper will discuss the following: The history of the corrections system, description of the corrections system and their roles, issues faced by corrections administrations, description of the rights of prisoners, description of alternative forms of corrections, including methods of rehabilitation and reintroduction and strategies to incarceration. This paper will give you all the information that is needed about a prison or jail in which people who have committed a crime and is sent to prison for punishment.
The eighteenth century was the century of transition from corporal punishment to imprisonment, and, though the process of change was most rapid after 1775, there can be no doubt that the general movement was in progress during the entire period. During the Colonial period there were two institutions in existence, the combination of which later produced the modern prison. They were the jails, or prisons of the time, and the workhouses. The jails or prisons were chiefly used for the detention of those accused of crime pending their trial and for the confinement of debtors and religious and political offenders. They were rarely used for the incarceration of what were regarded as the criminal classes. At each session of the court there occurred what was called a “goal delivery,” when the jail was practically emptied of its inmates, only to be filled again during the interval between the delivery and the next session of the court. Only political and religious offenders, debtors, and the few criminals who had received the rare penalty of imprisonment, remained in the jails or prisons longer than the period which elapsed between successive sessions of the courts. The workhouses, on the other hand, which began to appear about the middle of the sixteenth century, and reached their highest early development in Holland, were not for more than two centuries after their origin penal institutions in any strict sense of the word. (Barnes 1921 to 1922)
In every prison each person within the system has a role that is very important to the operation of the prison. The first person that I want to speak on is the warden. The warden is the top person in the prison and they are responsible for the overall function of the prison. They have to make sure the prison is functional to the officer and the inmates. The warden is the overseer of the correctional facility staff and makes sure the safety and security of the facility. The warden is also over prison polices and set financial goals for the prison. The next person that fall under the warden is the deputy warden. This person will make the same decision as the warden if the warden is out of work. This person has to work hand in hand with the warden and have to be on the same page as the warden. The next person in the chain of command staff is the Major. The major is over the function of the prison and he or she handles discipline of the officers. The major will also handle complaints from the inmates if there be any. I have worked in a prison for about 4 years and the major has a big responsibility when it comes to the prison. The prison also have several Captain. The caption is over the day to day activities of the inmate and the shift. The Captain has to make sure the correctional officers in the dorm is doing what he or she is supposed to be doing. The captain is also responsible for making sure all of the inmates are accounted for in the final count. The captain will also approve for the inmates to be taking outside of the prison for medical care. The shift also consist of lieutenant, the lieutenant is also responsible for the daily activities of the prison as well. The lieutenant is also responsible for the sergeants, corporals, and officers on the shift. When I worked in the prison, each dorm had a lieutenant, sergeants, corporal and officer in each dorm. The officer is usually the person that is running the dorm and the others are there for support. The prison has counting system and several times through the day each inmate has to be counted for to make sure the community is safe. When count times comes, a second person has to come around and make sure the count is correct. Once the institutional count is correct, the inmates are allowed to move and continue their daily activates. The last major position in the prison system is the yard officer and the rover person. The yard officer is in control of the yard and to make sure all inmates are doing what they are assigned to do. The prison has what is called controlled movement. When inmates are not on recreation or working they have to be moved around the yard with an officer and must be in a line. The rover person is responsible for making sure that no inmates gets out of the prison or attempt to escape from the prison. The officer is also responsible for the making sure that no other person in the community is on the property of the prison. It illegal for any person to enter the grounds of the prison without permission of the warden.
