Term Paper on "Direct Supervision"

Term Paper 3 pages (1153 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Direct Supervision in Correctional Organizations Today

The past few hundreds years have witnessed a wide range of methods used in prisons around the world, the vast majority of which reflected societal attitudes toward criminals and the purpose of prisons in their punishment and eventually their rehabilitation as well. At the time, each of these approaches to penology was viewed as being state of the art and appropriate, but many of these practices have been deemed cruel and unusual in recent years. In response to a growing incidence of violence and assaults of corrections officers using such systems in recent years, though, many correctional organizations have adopted a direct supervision approach which many proponents suggest is the most effective method available today in many corrections settings. This paper provides an overview of direct supervision and how it is used, followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion.

Today, both jails and prisons use direct supervision techniques. According to Mark Dow (2004), the direct supervision inmate management principle is a means by which "[the] staff is trained to look at people as rational human beings who make conscious decisions whether or not to violate a rule" (230). Direct supervision as a philosophy for prisons first emerged during the 1970s following a long period of neglect (Coleman & Oraftik 97). "The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was at the forefront of this new generation of facilities and in the process," these authors note, "also experimented with new operational approaches. What eventually became known as direct supervision was refined and used at many of the new federal facilities" (Coleman & Oraftik 97). At the time, the BOP, in collaboration with its architects, created three metropolitan detention centers in Chicago, New York and San Diego that were specifically designed to facilitate direct-supervision operations. According to Coleman and Orafti, "These landmark facilities became the best examples of direct-supervision operations and facility design" (97). Over the past 25 years, direct-supervision operational philosophies and techniques have been further refined and improved, and adapted to smaller, traditional and special population facilities; nevertheless, Coleman and Orafti point out that when these modern facilities are compared to the three original metropolitan detention centers and the first county facilities, it seems that, with few exceptions, there has been little or no progress from a facility design viewpoint (97).

As far as jails go, in his essay, "The Evolution of Direct Supervision in the Design and Operation of Jails," David M. Parrish (2000) reports that the Martinez Detention Facility (MDF) in Contra Costa, California is widely regarded as being the first direct-supervision county jail in the United States; this facility was opened 25 years ago in January 1981. At the time, the MDF represented a radical departure from traditional jail design and operation (Parrish 84). According to Parrish, today, direct supervision is accepted by many corrections professionals as the most practical and cost-effective way to run a jail. "In fact," he says, "according to surveys conducted by the American Jail Association (MA), the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) and the American Correctional Association (ACA), more than 100 of the nation's 3,300 jails report that they incorporate the design criteria and follow the principles of direct supervision" (Parrish 84). While all correctional organizations are unique, there are different approaches to direct supervision in use across the country, but by and large direct supervision is characterized by a number of common features:

1. Single cells for… READ MORE

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