Corrections Today articles from February 2003

Corrections Today archives from February 2003

Evercom Systems Inc.(Profile)
February 1, 2003... Evercom Systems Inc., a technology service provider to law enforcement, is the country's largest independent supplier of detainee telecommunications and information management solutions. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, with offices in Selma,...

The probation and parole system needs our help to succeed.(Editorial)
February 1, 2003... Last summer, Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) took the U.S. Senate floor and gave a short speech on probation and parole. During his speech, he stated that in his view, "the No. 1 problem in our criminal justice system today is the early release...

Probation, parole and community corrections: a difficult topic to understand?(Commentary)
February 1, 2003... Community corrections emerged in 1841 based on the concepts of John Augustus as a result of some very simple core values and expectations regarding what he hoped to accomplish with the individuals entrusted to him by the court. ...

Alabama's budget gap widens.(State News)
February 1, 2003... According to the Montgomery Advertiser, the Alabama prison system will need a 71 percent funding increase this year to avoid problems that could lead to a takeover by federal courts, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Mike Haley...

Iowa's female inmate population rising.(State News)
February 1, 2003... The Quad City Times recently reported that Iowa's female prison population soared 228 percent between 1990 and June 2002, while the men's population grew 105 percent, according to state records. The number of female inmates in Iowa's prisons is...

Breaking old traditions, welcoming accreditation.(Best in the Business)
February 1, 2003... When Emmitt Sparkman accepted the position of superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman nearly two years ago, he knew he was in for a challenge--one that he readily accepted. Built in 1900 on 18,000 acres of land, MSP is...

Court to consider inmate visit limits.(National News Briefs)
February 1, 2003... The Supreme Court agreed to decide how far states can go in restricting visits in prison--a decision that could further limit the rights of the 1.4 million inmates in the country's state and federal prisons. The New York Times reports that the...

DOJ explores "smart" gun control.(National News Briefs)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... According to ZDNet News, the National Institute of Justice is teaming up with Metal Storm, an electronic gun maker, to study how a firearm could be designed to determine whether the person holding it should be allowed to fire it. The research...

Experience: the key to auditing.(Accreditation Byline)
February 1, 2003... Corrections professionals can be proud of the strides the profession has made throughout the years. Corrections has evolved from the dingy, cramped, linear facilities of yesteryear to the spacious, brightly lit and painted facilities of today....

Warden.(Job Bank)
February 1, 2003... Mobile County Metro Jail Mobile County, Ala. The Mobile County Sheriff's Office seeks a highly qualified warden to manage the Mobile County Metro Jail. A bachelor's degree from a recognized college or university in criminal justice...

Executive director.(Job Bank)
February 1, 2003... Cook County Department of Corrections Chicago The Cook County Sheriff's Office seeks an executive director for the Cook County DOC. The executive director is responsible for: administering the largest single-site jail in the...

Technical assistance coordinator.(Job Bank)
February 1, 2003... Office for Victims of Crime Fairfax, Va. Caliber Associates Inc. is a dynamic, employee-owned consulting firm specializing in the social and behavioral sciences. Caliber's 300 staff continue to share the firm's founding philosophy of...

Corrections calendar.(Calendar)
February 1, 2003... * INTERSEC. Security Exhibition and Conference 2003, Feb. 18-20, Wembley Exhibition Centre. Wembley, London. Visit www.intersec.co.uk/ise. * American Correctional Association, Workshop, "Supervising Young Offenders," Feb. 20-21, ACA, 4380...

2002 midterm elections impact America.(Legislative Issues)
February 1, 2003... The November 2002 midterm election marked the first time in U.S. history that the president's party gained seats in the House of Representatives during the administration's first midterm elections. The Republican Party also picked up seats in...

A new task for corrections: protecting inmates' medical records.(Judicial News)
February 1, 2003... Those in the corrections field do not generally equate correctional institutions with inmate privacy. However, a new federal law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIP AA), requires certain correctional institutions to...

Why sex offender notification won't keep our children safe.(Sex Offender Registration)
February 1, 2003... There are few crimes more heinous than child molestation. Whether subjected to a violent attack by a stranger or preyed upon by a trusted adult in the home or church, children who survive such horrors are left to walk a lifelong path of sorrow...

Sex offender registries protect our children.(Sex Offender Registration)
February 1, 2003... For longer than most care to consider, the Catholic Church has been secretly struggling with an epidemic of pedophile priests. Whenever parishioner complaints overwhelmed the facade of holiness, offending priests were dispatched to behavior...

Ellis MacDougall.(In Memoriam)(Obituary)
February 1, 2003... Ellis Campbell MacDougall, prison reformer and former American Correctional Association president, died Dec. 21 in Columbia, S.C. MacDougall, 75, served as ACA president in 1969 and was an E.R. Cass Correctional Achievement Award winner in...

Gwendolyn C. Chunn.(In other News ...)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Gwendolyn C. Chunn, criminal justice professor and executive director of the Juvenile Justice Institute at North Carolina Central University, was recognized in the People section of the Dec. 2, 2002, issue of JET magazine. It was noted that she...

Richard L. Stalder.(In other News ...)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Richard L. Stalder has been honored with the Association of State Correctional Administrators' Michael Francke Award, which was created in 1989 in memory of Michael Francke, director of corrections in Oregon at the time of his death. The award...

The effectiveness of community-based sanctions in reducing recidivism.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... Community corrections has long been seen as either a legitimate alternative to incarceration in a state prison or local jail or, perhaps more often, a poor substitute for higher levels of punishment and incapacitation. Correctional system...

Much ado about nothing: "broken windows" versus "what works".(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... There is an urgent need to reconcile two very useful public safety and social justice paradigms--the broken windows theory and the what works principle. It is unfortunate that reconciliation is needed at all. However, professional and...

Probation and parole: the savior of corrections.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... Blue twirling smoke rises then plateaus as an imaginary ceiling is met. Jeff creates artistic forms of smoke impressionism as he wrestles with boredom and awaits reporting instructions. He has been in this situation on several occasions. A...

The benefits of accreditation for probation and parole agencies.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... Probation as a formal correctional sanction began in Boston in 1841, when a shoemaker named John Augustus offered to take an offender into his care and help him, according to the American Probation and Parole Association. Since then, probation...

Juvenile justice practitioners add value to communities.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... Community corrections agencies are often considered to include only adult probation and parole departments and community-based residential programs, such as halfway houses, for adult offenders. Often, community corrections professionals...

Falling crime rates, rising caseload numbers: using police-probation partnerships.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... Throughout the 1990s, probation leaders faced a growing dilemma in which burgeoning caseload numbers and limited resources made effective offender supervision in the community difficult or impossible. As a result, an increasing number of...

Addressing issues of domestic violence through community supervision of offenders.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... Domestic violence is a widespread problem. A woman is raped or physically assaulted by a significant other every three minutes, and each hour, 84 stalking cases are reported to law enforcement officials. In Missouri, steps are being taken to...

Reinvigorating community corrections: a view from down under.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... In the preface of the 1972 edition of The Labors of John Augustus, republished by the American Probation and Parole Association in 1984, the bold prediction was made that "like other countries, the United States is, at long last, finding that...

Building bridges instead of walls: effective cross-cultural counseling.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... Cultural differences between the helper and client can be a major barrier in building rapport in the counseling relationship. Before change can occur, rapport is often a necessary prerequisite. (1) A lack of rapport can increase the chance that...

Probation and parole service delivery model: the Ontario experience.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... In late 1999, Ontario began implementing an innovative probation and parole service delivery framework, the Probation and Parole Service Delivery Model (PPSDM), which incorporates empirically based approaches to offender assessment, supervision...

Identifying and providing services to Texas' juvenile offenders with mental health needs.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... Amother calls 911 to report her child to the police in response to a behavioral tantrum that is caused by the child's mental health condition. When asked why she did not seek mental health services, the mother states that she has been told by...

Organizational change & staff empowerment.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... The dual role of a parole officer makes it one of the most difficult occupations. First, the officer is mandated to protect the community from parolees who goes off the straight and narrow. Second, the officer helps the parolee integrate back...

Officers, take heed: protecting against offender attacks.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... On the morning of Jan. 26, 1999, Washington state community corrections officer Tom Perrine woke up and took the family dog outside, just as he had done many times before. As he and his dog reached the corner of the house, his dog went toward a...

Operation Safe Streets: Delaware's unique law enforcement initiative.(CT Feature)
February 1, 2003... On an ordinary evening during fall 2000 in Wilmington, Del., probation officer John Dudzinski and Delaware State Police Cpl. Siobhan Sullivan, working together on special assignment, did something extraordinary. The two law enforcement...

Correctional chaplains: calming the storms of life for staff and inmates.
February 1, 2003... Editor's Note: This article is the first of a three-part series written by members of the American Correctional Chaplains Association about the role of chaplains in the corrections community. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A little-known piece...

Cognitive programs: coming of age in corrections.
February 1, 2003... Cognitive behavior programs are best understood when the historical roots upon which they are based are reviewed. There are two theoretical foundations, both well-researched and with rich program implementation. Aron Beck, a psychiatrist...

The show goes on.
February 1, 2003... The actress steps center stage. When she was young, she tells the audience, "life was terrific--all spread out, waiting for me to take advantage." But after 20 years of wrong choices, wrong men, "I suddenly realized that the one thing I didn't...

Improving the odds: for incarcerated youths.
February 1, 2003... Recently, the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice received a letter that pointed out the many new developments in the area of education at the Augusta Georgia Youth Development Campus. After reading the letter, it became apparent what people...

Probation in Europe: current developments.(Probation and Parole Forum)
February 1, 2003... At the annual International Corrections and Prisons Association conference held in Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands Oct. 20-25, 2002, John Walters, secretary general of the Conference Permanente Europeenne de la Probation, presented an overview of...

99 Days and a Get Up: A Guide to Success Following Release for Inmates and Their Loved Ones, Third Edition.(Bookshelf)(Book Review)
February 1, 2003... 99 Days and a Get Up: A Guide to Success Following Release for Inmates and Their Loved Ones, Third Edition, by Ned Rollo, Offender Preparation and Education Network Inc., 2002, 82 pp. Available in ACA's catalog. During the past few years,...

Preventing staff misconduct in the community corrections setting.(NIC Update)(National Institute of Corrections)
February 1, 2003... The increase in reports of staff misconduct with clients/offenders in the community corrections setting is a growing concern for administrators. The scope of misconduct is particularly devastating when it involves allegations of sexual...

Welcome ACA's newest members.(Membership News)(American Correctional Association)
February 1, 2003... SUPPORTING PATRON NEW YORK -- Gelb Enterprises Inc. ORGANIZATIONAL ALABAMA -- Alabama Department of Youth Services ARKANSAS -- Consolidated Youth Services Inc. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA -- Consortium for Youth Services ...

Sensor fence: a new approach to large-perimeter security.(Technology Update)
February 1, 2003... For the past five years, Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory has been building a network of relationships with law enforcement and correctional agencies throughout the United States. These partnerships stem from the increasing interest and...