Authors examine the differences in safety, culture, and operations between public and private jail facilities.
Document Category: Operations
Jails are a complex ecosystem with a variety of challenges. Staffing, health care, budgeting, adequate funding and resources, recruitment, hiring, and retention, aging facilities, jail planning, managing special populations, appropriate staff training, and a host of other items are all relevant issues for Indian Country jails. Resources on this page are offered in support of Indian Country jails, their missions, and the significance they hold among the nation’s jails.
Jail standards ensure that constitutional and statutory provisions are put into operational practice. These standards ensure a greater consistency across the state in jails’ quality of care, use of resources, and operations. They also provide policymakers with a means of assessing and addressing the needs of inmates in a logical, objective way.
Objective jail classification (OJC) is a process of assessing every jail inmate’s custody and program needs and is considered one of the most important management tools available to jail administrators and criminal justice system planners. An effective system of inmate classification will reduce escapes and escape attempts, suicides and suicide attempts, and inmate assaults.
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards is the regulatory agency for all county jails and privately operated municipal jails in the state. Our mission is to assist local governments in providing safe, secure and suitable local jail facilities through our provision of services.
This brief will examine the concept of step-down or transitional programs, including their goals, different ways in which they can operate, key components of effective programs, and common pitfalls that should be avoided to promote their success.
RAND Corporation and the University of Denver (DU) analyzed insights from a working group of experts with practical expertise in and knowledge of mortality trends.
Correctional facilities are responsible for the care, custody, and control of individuals who are detained while awaiting trial or who have been convicted of a crime and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. The true scope of this mission is much broader than simply protecting the public from those accused or convicted of criminal acts by keeping these individuals behind bars. These facilities also have a constitutional obligation to provide for the health and well-being of those under their charge. Administrators are responsible for not only developing and implementing strategies to prevent violence among the inmate population and inmate self-harm, but also for providing general health care through medical and mental health services.
The report documents that sexual and gender minority individuals who are incarcerated experience exceptionally high rates of sexual victimization in U.S. prisons and jails as compared to other inmates. It also notes that LGBTI people are disproportionately represented in corrections, most likely due to high rates of harassment and rejection that LGBTQI youth face from their families, schools, and communities, which contributes to the early involvement of LGBTI people in the juvenile justice system. The report also notes that historically same-sex behavior and gender variance were criminalized in the U.S. until recently.
Project SAFE is Safe Alternatives Focused on Engagement. It is aimed at demonstrating how a multi-discipline team (MDT), with various stakeholders, roles and responsibilities can be an active part of the problem solving that contributes towards both jail and community safety.