Corrections Community

Reminder: Winter ACA January 22-27, 2009

Tom Reid — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:48:00 GMT

Just a reminder that you have until January 8, 2010 to get advance registration rates for the 2010 ACA Winter Conference in Tampa, FL. General information at: http://www.aca.org/conferences/winter2010/

For the advance registration form, go to: http://www.aca.org/conferences/winter2010/PDFs/WC2010_Advance_Registration_Form.pdf

For on-line registration: https://www.tradeshowregistrar.com/regsystem17/?event=ACA2010

Don't forget to visit the National Institute of Corrections booth in the exhibition hall for resources and information.

Creating a Workforce Development Culture To Reduce Reincarceration

Scott — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:24:00 GMT

In the mid-1990s, offender reentry gained visibility as an important public policy issue. At that time, organizations such as the U.S. Department of Education (ED), the National Institute of Corrections (NIC), and the National Institute of Justice began exploring offender workforce development strategies as an avenue for promoting the successful reintegration of offenders into communities. These strategies stem from the idea that offender employment builds communities, increases the economic self-sufficiency of families, strengthens fragile families, and provides structure and support for those seeking to remain crime free.

In 2003, ED's Life Skills for State and Local Prisoners Program awarded a 3-year, $1 million research/ demonstration grant to support Vermont's Workforce Development Program. Correctional administrators in Vermont aimed to reduce recidivism by 25 percent for offenders with poor work histories and moderate to high risk of reoffending by using a strengths-based approach to teach fundamental life skills throughout education, work, and living units.

This strengths-based program approach is built on participants' understanding and use of the "Habits of Mind," which are 16 aspects of behavioral intelligence, or life skills, that foster effective problem solving. In addition to reducing recidivism by 25 percent and reinforcing participants' acquisition of the Habits of Mind, the Workforce Development Program targeted a 90percent employment rate within 1 month of release and sought to make changes in the organizational culture at each of three program sites.

Read the rest of NIC's Transition and Offender Workforce Development Bulletin on NIC's website.

NIC Announces Solicitation for Broadcast/DVD Production

llinke — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:42:00 GMT

The National Institute of Corrections released a solicitation to fund production of four satellite/internet broadcasts and three DVDs. The full solicitation is attached to this blog and will soon be posted to www.grants.gov. The service will be provided through a cooperative agreement, and applications are due December 1, 2009. Link here to learn more about cooperative agreements with NIC.

Download the Solicitation

NIC Seeks Developers for "Systems Approach" Workforce Performance Training

llinke — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:29:00 GMT

The National Institute of Corrections Prisons Division has released a solicitation to develop a curriculum to train upper-level management of individual state correctional and prison systems. Through a 12-month cooperative agreement, the developers would produce a field-tested curriculum to better prepare agency management to use collaborative, systemic, performance-based approaches to address current challenges. The complete solicitation is attached to this blog and will be posted soon on www.grants.gov. Applications are due November 30, 2009, and a web-conference for potential bidders is scheduled for November 5 to discuss the project. Send your e-mail by noon, November 3, 2009 to mdooley@bop.gov to register for the web-conference. Link here for more information regarding cooperative agreements with NIC.

Download the Solicitation

Green IT and State Budgets

Scott — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:06:00 GMT

www.nascio.org writes "States are proven leaders in the green movement. In the face of tightening budgets that demand a departure from business as usual, states are demonstrating leadership through an array of green initiatives. State governments, with their state CIO, can start greening IT practices today." Click here to view the video Taking the Lead: Green IT in the States. CIO's from various states discuss the benefit of green initiatives on the bottom line, starting points for becoming Green IT, and reducing the number of servers and physical storage.

NIC announces Green Corrections award

Scott — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:02:00 GMT

The National Institute of Corrections will partner with the Academy for Educational Development located in Washington, DC. The Academy will subcontract with John Jay College of Criminal Justice's Prisoner Reentry Institute, RicciGreene Associates, The Corps Network, and Dr. Pinderhughes to compose a 45-50 page white paper. The partnership will investigate offender green-collar job readiness programs, identify strategies to make penal industry products and services more environmentally friendly, and identify strategies to build or transform agencies into self-sustaining facilities.

Management of HIV/AIDS in the Correctional & Community Settings

CC Pro — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:52:00 GMT

"Neurological Manifestations of HIV Infection," the 34th program in the ongoing series designed to provide corrections professionals with strategies to manage HIV/AIDS in the corrections environment, will be broadcast on October 14, 2009, 12:30 - 2:30 ET. The presentation will be a live satellite videoconference and webcast. Registration is free and Continuing Education Credits (CEC) are available. For further information on the subject matter, how to register, and archived videoconferences, please click here.

Apply Now for Administering the Small and Medium-Sized Jail Training

Sandy Schilling — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:12:00 GMT

The National Institute of Corrections if offering Administering the Small and Medium-Sized Jail as a co-sponsored training with the Kansas Jail Association. It will be held November 16-20, 2009 at the Kansas Highway Patrol Training Center in Salina, Kansas. The training will cover administrative responsibilities, such as:

Action planning.
Using jail standards.
Managing risk.
Developing and assessing policies and procedures.
Determining staffing needs.
Managing the workforce.
Managing inmate behavior.
Developing a fire, safety, and sanitation plan.
Managing the budget.
Administrator’s role outside the jail.
Assessing jail operations.

The application deadline has been extented to October 30, 2009. This program is open to jail administrators or an agency team composed of the agency chief executive officer (such as the sheriff) and the jail administrator or the jail administrator and assistant jail administrator from small and medium sized jails. Read more and complete an online application.

National Youth Gang Center To Merge With The National Gang Center

CC Pro — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:04:00 GMT

On October 1, 2009, the National Youth Gang Center will merge with the National Gang Center. This merger is a collaborative effort between the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). The site will offer information on training, gang-related legislation, web resources, threat assessments, and surveys & analysis. The most recent National Youth Gang Survey Analysis is available here.

Recycling and composting efforts in Pennsylvania DOC

Scott — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:13:00 GMT

Read the Correctional Newsfront: Pennslyvania Department of Corrections article "Composting...it's a daily grind." The article discusses recycling efforts (which uses inmate workers) and composting initiatives in several of PA's correctional facilities.

Six States Selected for NIC's 'Transition from Prison to Community' Initiative

llinke — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:40:00 GMT

The National Institute of Corrections has selected Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming to participate in the next phase of the Transition from Prison to Community (TPC) Initiative. The TPC Model is a comprehensive systems approach to successfully return inmates to communities. NIC's project partners (The Center for Effective Public Policy and the Urban Institute) will provide technical assistance to these states during the next three years as they implement the TPC model. These six states follow eight other states that participated in the first round of the TPC initiative. Link here to learn more about the experiences in those eight states.

2008 National Criminal Victimization Survey

CC Pro — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:54:00 GMT

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reports violent and property crime rates in 2008 were at or near their lowest levels in over three decades. Violent crimes are categorized as rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. "Property crimes include household burglary, motor vehicle theft, and theft." Personal theft, including pocket picking and purse snatching are also included. The data is in concurrence with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) which also notes the continual downward trend in criminal activities over the same time period.

Merging juvenile justice and sustainability in California

Scott — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:23:00 GMT

This article, published in the June 2009 edition of Correction's Today, discusses the development of a green facility for juveniles. The facility was designed to save 7 million gallons of water annually and reduce energy consumption, in addition to other green improvements.

Effects of Postsecondary Education

Eileen Conway — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:57:00 GMT

As practitioners and policymakers seek ways to improve correctional practice and to keep released offenders from recidivating, many are looking at ways to improve reentry success. Education and employment certainly form components of interest, and a newly posted report from the Urban Institute looks at impacts of a less-documented educational program, prison-based postsecondary education (PSE). The Effects of Postsecondary Correctional Education explores "the motivations for enrolling in PSE, the impact of PSE on offenders while incarcerated, and the expected benefits after release," as well as analyzing postrelease recidivism data. While the authors offer several significant caveats regarding the nature of their study, they view their findings as "promising, but not conclusive, evidence of the potential of correctional PSE to improve postrelease outcomes for prisoners."

Validation of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Risk Assessment Instrument

CC Pro — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:18:00 GMT

The use of risk assessment instruments to measure the probability of individuals under community supervision re-offending is standard operational procedure (SOP) for probation and parole agencies across the country. Across the different generations of instruments that have been employed, the basic question still remains: Does this instrument provide the necessary data to formulate proper levels of offender supervision based on risk, and assist in calculating staff workload and deployment.

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections has recently completed a validation of the risk assessment instrument they use. The study was prepared by the Council of State Governments Justice Center. With a sample of over 42,000 offenders under community supervision (probation and parole) between 2001 and 2002, data were examined using the outcome measures of: "(a) a new offense within three years of placement on community supervision; and (b) new violent offense within three years of placement on community supervision." to define recidivism.

Among the findings:

A high percentage of offenders were classified as high risk, which is counter to the goal of risk classification: to differentiate the population by risk and and allocate resources accordingly.
The main reason for the over-classification was the weight given to the assaultive offense factor.
Other factors, besides the weight given to the assaultive risk factor, may have also contributed to the over-classification issue.
The probation and parole population differed significantly on the distribution of the population on most risk factors.
Probationers and parolees classified at the same risk levels had different rates of re-offending with parolees having higher rates of re-offending for the same risk levels.
The Wisconsin Risk instrument (DOC 502) differentiated populations into groups with different rates of committing a new assaultive offense. However, most of the offenders classified at high risk of committing a new offense did not commit a new assaultive offense during the follow-up period.

Included is a Summary of Recommendations by the authors to increase the effectiveness of this instrument. While this study is specific to Wisconsin, it has implications for every agency that uses assessment instruments for assigning risk and resource allocation.

Conducted Energy Devices: Use in a Custodial Setting

Sandy Schilling — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:20:00 GMT

The report, Conducted Energy Devices: Use in a Custodial Setting, is a collaborative study by the Police Executive Research Forum, National Sheriffs' Association, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. As part of this paper, the National Sheriffs' Association has included a "Recommended General Order for Use of Conducted Energy Devices" that consists of the purpose, policy, definitions, and procedures involving the CEDs.

Inmate Behavior Management: The Key to a Safe and Secure Jail

Sandy Schilling — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:35:00 GMT

The National Institute of Corrections has published Inmate Behavior Management: The Key to a Safe and Secure Jail by Virginia Hutchinson, Kristin Keller, and Thomas Reid, Ph.D. The six elements of the inmate behavior management plan are:

Assessing Risk and Needs
Assigning Inmates to Housing
Meeting Inmates' Basic Needs
Defining and Conveying Expectations for Inmate Behavior
Supervising Inmates
Keeping Inmates Productively Occupied

A 42-hour training program on Inmate Behavior Management will also be offered by the Jails Division at the National Corrections Academy in Aurora, Colorado. If you are interested in developing a formal plan to better manage inmate behavior in your jail read more about this program and the application process.

What Are the Latest Developments in Juvenile Justice Legislation?

CC Pro — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:08:00 GMT

If you've ever asked this question, the National Conference of State Legislatures has now provided the answer. The Juvenile Justice Bill Tracking Database follows juvenile justice legislation in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and American Territories. Whether you're interested in the most recent legislation concerning due process and procedures, juvenile sex offenders, mental health and substance abuse, or reentry and aftercare for juveniles, you'll find the answer in this continually updated database.

2009 Survey of Pretrial Services Programs

CC Pro — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:00:00 GMT

A survey of pretrial service programs in 171 participating jurisdictions has been published by the Pretrial Justice Institute. This survey examines the "general characteristics of pretrial services programs, such as jurisdictions and populations served; pretrial program practices such as investigation, risk assessment, initial court appearances and supervised pretrial release; the management and evaluation of these practices; and issues connected to jail crowding."

Among the findings:

44% of pretrial programs established since 2000 serve areas that are considered primarily rural.
Half of the pretrial programs started since 1990 are administratively housed within probation departments.
Half of these probation-run programs have annual budgets of less than $200,000 and half have five or less staff persons.

Pandemic Flu Guidelines for Community Corrections

CC Pro — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:45:00 GMT

A recently released report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) estimates the H1N1 virus could "produce infection of 30-50% of the U.S. population this fall and winter...; lead to as many as 1.8 million U.S. hospital admissions during the epidemic...; cause between 30,000 and 90,000 deaths in the United States...; pose especially high risks for individuals with certain pre-existing conditions..."

With the goal of preparing community corrections professionals to deal with the realities of such a situation, the American Probation and Parole Association, through a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, has published guidelines for preparedeness and response planning for community corrections personnel to protect the health and well-being of themselves and their clients to carry out their mission(s) during an anticipated severe flu season.