Running head: JAIL AND PRISONS

Jail and Prisons

Bobbi Knapp
CJS/201
November 23, 2015
Jerry Shoate

JAIL AND PRISONS

Jail and Prisons

At yearend 2014, the United States held an estimated 1,561,500 prisoners in

state and federal correctional facilities . Depending on the crime, sentence, and risk
level, those convicted can be housed in four different types of prison facilities.
Minimum security prisons are usually reserved for white collar criminals who
have committed acts such as embezzlement or fraud. Although these are serious
crimes, they are non-violent in nature and therefore the perpetrators are not
considered to be a risk for violence. These perpetrators are sent to facilities that
offer a dormitory-type living environment, fewer guards, and more personal
freedoms.
Medium security prisons are the standard facilities used to house most criminals.
They feature cage-style housing, armed guards, and a much more regimented daily
routine than minimum security.
High security prisons are reserved for the most violent and dangerous offenders.
These prisons include far more guards than both minimum and medium security,
and very little freedom. Each person confined to such a prison is considered to be a
high-risk individual.
Every branch of military has its own prison facilities that are used specifically
for military personnel who have broken laws that affect national security, or to
house prisoners of war. The treatment of these prisoners has been a subject of
much debate in recent times, and the definition of torture for enemy combatants
has become a controversial and often discussed topic.

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Law-breakers who are deemed to be mentally unfit are sent to psychiatric

prisons that are designed with resemblances to hospitals. Once there, the inmates,
or patients, receive psychiatric help for their mental disorders. As with any prison
that pursues methods of rehabilitation, psychiatric prisons are intended to try and
help people as opposed to just confining them as a means of punishment
T.I. Roach Unit is a prison located in Childress, TX. This type of prison is
classified as a boot camp and provides an assortment of programs to help inmates
better themselves. The Roach Unit offers career and technology training programs,
construction, carpentry, heating and ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration,
as well as, landscape and design and more. There is a variety of community work
projects with services provided to the city and county agencies, the Texas
Department of Public Safety, local area food banks and Texas Parks and Wildlife.
Roach also has volunteer Initiatives in life skills, arts/crafts, support groups,
substance abuse education and religious/faith based studies and activities.
Jack Harwell Detention Center is located in McLennan County and is one of two
detention centers that sit side by side. The difference between its brother facilities
is that Jack Harwell is actually a county federal holding facility. The house not only
federal inmates waiting to be transferred, but are also a temporary residence for
individuals such as I.C.E. detainees waiting to be deported back to their countries of
residence, as well as individuals who are waiting to testify against others at trial.
Jack Harwell Detention Center also houses the overflow coming off the main county
jail.
Individuals that have spent time in and out of correctional institutions develop a
separate way of thinking than people who have not been incarcerated. These

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cultures and subcultures become like second nature to an inmate and often inhibit
an offenders rehabilitation. Correctional officers and other persons in authority are
considered the enemy. This belief that its us against the world often prevents
them from asking for help when its needed. Prisoners who talk to the guards or
snitch on other prisoners often find themselves having to be separated from the
rest of the population as a result of retaliation. Unfortunately, violence is also
considered normal in jails and prisons. Inmates segregate themselves into cliques,
whether it be segregation based on race or affiliation and inmates who are new to
the system are often singled out when they unintentionally behave in a way that is
considered wrong.
The most important reason jails are important to our criminal justice system is
that they provide a facility to house offenders who are being rehabilitated, while
keeping the community safe at the same time. Jails provide community based
programs and incentives that prisons cannot offer such as work release programs as
a reward for good behavior. Work release allow inmates the opportunity to leave the
premises daily to attend a job and return in the evenings or on the weekends.
Incentives such as this are beneficial to both the offender, as well as the community
alike. The inmate is given the chance to prove they can change and is shown that
behaving appropriately affords certain privileges and the community receives
restitution for the crimes committed.
Interpersonal violence is an endemic problem within correctional institutions the
world over. According to the U.K. National Prison Survey, approximately one in ten
inmates reported being physically assaulted within a six-month period. Fifteen
percent of inmates under the age of 21 reported being victims of violent attacks

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within the same period. When asked about their full terms of confinement, 12.5
percent of inmates reported in another study that they had been assaulted at least
once .
Probation is not the same as parole, which is release after prison. Probation is
usually put in place in lieu of incarceration and are required to fulfill certain
conditions such as payment of fines, community service, and classes or adhere to
specific rules of conduct. Failure to comply with any conditions set forth by the court
can result in revocation of probation thus resulting in incarceration. Probationers
can also have various levels of supervision. Most probationers to begin are required
to report monthly in person, working towards an inactive status, which means being
excluded from regularly reporting. Parole is a reward that inmates earn according to
provisions of any number of statute, in which they are conditionally released under
various types of post-custody conditional supervision . Parolees too, can have
various levels of supervision, as well as certain conditions to comply with. Failure to
comply with these rules can result in parole being revoked and the remainder of the
sentence served in prison.
Probation is, in a sense, equivalent to a warning. It should be interpreted as a
warning, in a way, a sign that an individual should step back and take a long hard
look at the circumstances that got them on probation in the first place; the next
step being incarceration.

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References
Carson, E. A. (2015). Prisoners in 2014: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Prisoner
Statistics.
page, B. o. J. S. H. (2014). Corrections.
Prison gang integration and inmate violence. (2015). Journal of Criminal Justice(40),
425-432.
Punishment, N. M. o. C. (2015). Crime Library: Types of Prisons | Crime Museum.