Corrections Today articles from December 1999

Corrections Today archives from December 1999

Professional Development -- Meeting the Challenge of Change.
December 1, 1999... Although Mark Twain's quote is more than 100 years old, it has more truth today than it did all those years ago. In the past, one would acquire a formal education, choose a career, receive some training and learn on the job. This is no longer...

Professional Development in the Future Tense.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... Jennifer James, author of the book, Thinking in the Future Tense, introduces us to her view of the future by describing a confrontation she experienced at a grave site at an Anglican church in Malaysia. In recounting her experience, she notes...

Letter to the Editor.(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 1999... Resources for Employers Of the Disabled At the kind invitation of the American Correctional Association's (ACA's) legislative liaison, I attended a workshop titled "The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): Accommodating Staff in the...

Washington's Substance Abuse Costs Billions.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... The cost of untreated alcohol and drug abuse in Washington state totaled an estimated $2.54 billion in 1996, according to a recent report by the Center for Substance Abuse Research. This is a substantial increase over the 1990 estimate of $1.81...

Increase in Colorado's Female Offenders.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... Colorado is running out of room for women convicted of serious crimes such as murder, assault and robbery, reports USA Today. Since 1989, the number of females entering the state prison system has grown from 392 to 1,186 -- an increase of...

Electrocution in Florida Unconstitutional?
December 1, 1999... According to Corrections Alert, the Florida Supreme Court soon will decide whether electrocution constitutes cruel and unusual punishment -- a ruling that could impact correctional policies in the other 10 states that use the electric chair for...

Juvenile Crime Highest After School.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... Young people have the greatest chance of becoming victims of violence between the hours of 3 and 7 p.m., reports the Department of Justice (DOJ). Juvenile Offenders and Victims. 1999 National Report, issued by the Office of Juvenile Justice and...

DNA Threatening Court Credibility?(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... According to USA Today, a federal panel has found that U.S. court credibility is being threatened because many criminal convictions are overturned by DNA test results. "The strong presumption that verdicts are correct has been weakened,"...

Thirty Years of Career Diversity.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... Sandy Burnam describes her career as a "great ride" filled with rewarding experiences. During her 30 years in corrections, Burnam held a variety of positions, including caseworker; parole officer; director of parole; superintendent of several...

The Marc Deschamps Story: How a Correctional Officer Survived And Triumphed Over Leukemia.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... Correctional officer Marc Deschamps of Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI)-Framingham seemed to be in excellent health. At 29, he was the proud father of a new baby boy and his future looked great -- until 11 a.m., June 3, 1998. It was...

The Nebraska Correctional Association: Opening Many Doors of Opportunity.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... Editor's Note: The Nebraska Correctional Association (NCA) was in the process of changing presidents while this article was being written. Mike Kenney was president at that time. Larry Wayne became president Oct. 22. When Nabraska...

100 Years of the Children's Court -- Giving Kids the Chance to Make Better Choices.
December 1, 1999... They're prosecutors, politicians, poets and probation officers; academics, attorneys, athletes and authors; students, stockbrokers and salespeople; and football players and firefighters. They've worked at the highest levels of government, as...

Correctional Officers Deserve Respect.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... Having been a correctional officer for more than 17' years, I have seen a big change in the public's perception of who we are and what we do. However, correctional officers still do not get the respect they deserve as law enforcement...

Broken Windows: Fixing Probation.(Brief Article)
December 1, 1999... On Aug. 19, 1999, the Manhattan Institute released Broken Windows Probation. The Next Step in Fighting Crime. The report is part of the efforts being carried out by John Dilulio, professor of public policy at Princeton University and by members...

FIGHTING THE ENEMY WITHIN: HELPING OFFICERS DEAL WITH STRESS.
December 1, 1999... "Every year, correctional officers from across the country gather at a monument in Judiciary Square in Washington, D.C., to honor our brothers and sisters who have fallen in the line of duty," says John Carr, clinical supervisor of the Rhode...

PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT: A RESPONSIBILITY, NOT A JOB.
December 1, 1999... Criminal justice has always been a wor1d of place. Whether it is the commissioner who sits at the top of the organization, the officer who sits at the bottom or the offender who follows their dictates, each one knows his or her place. It is a...

WY2K: the challenge of being a warden in the new millennium.
December 1, 1999... IT'S JUST AROUND THE CORNER. The year 2000 is the beginning of a new millennium for mankind or, as some people believe, the end of our organized existence. The Y2K computer problem has captured headlines and caused many people to fear the...

LIFE ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN: CAREERS IN CORRECTIONS.
December 1, 1999... In a very real sense, correctional employees serve more time in prison than many inmates do -- they just serve their time in eight-hour installments. As criminologist James B. Jacobs noted in his 1983 book, New Perspectives on Prisons and...

Professional Development For Correctional Staff.
December 1, 1999... There are some who see the phrase "professional correctional employee" as an oxymoron. Corrections, though, is very much a professional career choice and it is time we convince both ourselves and the rest of society of this. It takes a special...

LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CORRECTIONS.
December 1, 1999... There is a difference between an act of leadership an act of management. Exactly where the difference lies depends on who is speaking. In general, acts of leadership are those activities necessary to define the destination of the organization...

EXPERIENTIAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION FOR PRISON STAFF.
December 1, 1999... Working in corrections can be very stressful. Studies by F.E. Cheek indicate that the life expectancy of a correctional officer is only 59 years, compared to 74 years for the average American. Correctional staff also experience high levels of...

NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION.
December 1, 1999... Implements Executive Leadership Development Training The world of corrections is becoming more technical, legalistic and political. Electronic communication and offender monitoring and control have changed the way corrections does business....

Invest in Corrections' Greatest Asset Your Staff.
December 1, 1999... In 1870, corrections professionals and concerned citizens convened at the National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline. The Congress not only resulted in the creation of the National Prison Association, which later became the...

THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN A DEMANDING CORRECTIONAL ENVIRONMENT.
December 1, 1999... In August 1999, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that as of Dec. 31, 1998, the U.S. correctional population reached 5.9 million offenders. This statistic reflects a population growth of 163,800 adult offenders during 1998 in the...

Reinventing Probation From The Top Down.
December 1, 1999... A Look At Leadership Much has been said recently in professional circles about the need to reinvent probation. The discussions, for the most part, focus on the need to change the traditional paradigm for doing business. The paradigm shift...

Where Have All The Law Libraries Gone?
December 1, 1999... Offenders' Rights to Access the Courts in the Wake of Casey vs. Lewis Since the advent of Bounds vs. Smith in 1977, which established the doctrine of an offender's right to access the judiciary, the U.S. Supreme Court has been relatively...

Campaign 2000 -- Where It Stands.
December 1, 1999... Although nominations for the 2000 election may not be decided until next July or August and election day may not be until November, the 2000 election is well under way. Candidates for the U.S. presidency are already staking out their positions...

In Memoriam.(Obituary)
December 1, 1999... Paul W. Keve, a longtime ACA member, died Oct. 21, of cancer and its complications. Keve, 86, was a criminal justice expert and one of the first probation and parole officers in the state of Virginia. He worked for the correctional divisions of...

Long-Distance Training For Staff and Inmates.
December 1, 1999... Editor's note: This column was prepared by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Office of Science and Technology. Correspondence courses for adult learning have been around for many years. However, the idea of using the Internet or a...

Prisons Division Develops Programs.
December 1, 1999... The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) Prisons Division developed some interesting new programs for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 1999. NIC's strategic plan, which is the basis for the programmatic offerings of the division, reflects...

Bookshelf.(Review)
December 1, 1999... Mental Health in Corrections: An Overview for Correctional Staff, by Drs. Wesley Sowers, Kenneth Thompson and Stephen Mullins, American Correctional Association, 1-800-222-5646, 1999, 94 pp. Corrections personnel often must supervise...

Wackenhut Corrections Corp.
December 1, 1999... This past July, two Arkansas prison facilities managed by Wackenhut Corrections Corp. and housing inmates for the Arkansas Department of Corrections were selected for expansions totaling 600 beds. Wackenhut will expand the 600-bed facility for...

The Turner Corp.
December 1, 1999... This past August, the Turner Corp. announced that it had entered into a merger agreement with HOCHTIEF AG, under which HOCHTIEF would acquire all the outstanding common stock of Turner for $28.625 per share. With its completed work valued at...

Gimbel Glove Co.
December 1, 1999... Gimbel Glove Co. was incorporated as a limited liability corporation in July 1998. Based in Phoenix, the company has two subsidiaries: Gimbel Medical Glove Co. and Gimbel Protective Glove Co., which serve the medical and law enforcement...

CompuDyne Corp.
December 1, 1999... CompuDyne Corp. announced record revenues and earnings for the second quarter and first half of 1999. Second-quarter revenues were up 348 percent from 1998. Second-quarter net income was up 206 percent. First-half 1999 revenue was up 341...

North Carolina's Commitment to Excellence.
December 1, 1999... Editor's Note: The following is an edited version of the keynote address given at the Standards and Accreditation Luncheon at the American Correctional Association's (ACA) 129th Congress of Correction in Denver. I remember how proud I was...

Profile.
December 1, 1999... The Bob Barker Co. was founded in the early 1970s when its namesake sold restaurant equipment to correctional facilities from an office located in the back of a barbershop in North Carolina. To learn more about the corrections market, Bob...

Courts Rule on Sentence Violation And Deliberate Indifference.
December 1, 1999... Estate of Brown v. Barian, U.S. District Court, Wisconsin, 1999 On Aug. 21, 1997, 21-year-old Randy Brown, attempting to serve as a peacemaker in a street confrontation, was shot and killed by Patrick Rucker, one of the men involved in the...