The history of US corrections
Prisons are seen by nature as places marred violent. The first riot in prisons in the US did occur even before Independence Declaration in the prison of New gate at Connecticut in 1774. These uprisings continue even to date. One report shows that the United States institutions of correctional experienced an estimate of over 1,300 riots within 20th century. These insurgencies are attributable to a variety of causes, which include gang rivalries, racial tension, individual feuds and the general grievances aligned with prison administrators and guards.
The federal imprisonment has been in evolution ever since it was incepted. The history of corrections has been influenced by political trends and the United States cultural lives. The penal system of the federal has faced substantial evolution for the past two hundred years. The evolution can be considered in three different phases. The first phase was from 1776 to the close of nineteenth century. During this time there were no federal prisons in the US. Local facilities and states were used to board prisoners.
The Congress passed the Three Prison Act in 1891 and this saw the construction of federal facilities in Atlanta and Leavenworth with the McNeil Island’s old territorial prison in Washington eventually becoming third prison. By this time there was still no effective force of supervision worth making the prison system. Therefore, the United States’ federal government bore the task of prison cells of its own.
Prisons Federal Bureau was created in the year 1930 marking now system’s evolution third phase. In the first years of its existence, numerous innovations for correction were introduced by the Bureau. This move the building of an effective prison system, which was centrally controlled and its standards were progressive.
What needs to be fixed so that corrections runs more safely and efficient
The prisons are now overcrowded and this makes the violence among the inmates almost impossible to curb for this condition generates frustration, great tension, and anger amongst the prisoners leading to violence and conflicts
Technology in the correction systems has of late started to focus on ways to resolve some of the crisis. Doors in the cell have been made in a way that they are able to swing in both direction thus preventing barricades for the officers of correction.
The prisons should be seen as rehabilitation centers and not areas where wrong doers are punished. When the inmates are exposed into much pain they end up becoming even more rebellious and by the time they are released back into the society the harm that they are capable of doing is doubled.
Trainings should be considered for the inmates. They should be trained on life changing skills they end up molding them into reliable people in the society. This ensures that when the prisoners are free, they have much more life improving skills to rely on to cater for their livelihoods.
Forums should be organized for the prisoners where they are trained on life important issue such as offending behaviors, anger management, family violence, and general education. This will ensure mental transformation of the inmates and will be able to view life from a more reasonable perspective other than turning into criminal acts as a solution. Again this will alter the feeling that they always develop that they are social misfits.
Reference
Cahalan M., 1996, ‘Historical Corrections Statistics in the United States, 1850- 1984’
James R., 2009, ‘Prison Riots’, Time Magazine, Tuesday, Aug. 11, Web, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1916301,00.html
Law Teacher, 2012, ‘History of Corrections System’, Web, http://www.lawteacher.net/criminology/essays/history-of-corrections-system-criminology-essay.php
