¶ … Correction Institutions Administration and Leadership

Maintaining order and control in correctional facilities -- while also presiding over well-managed facilities from a fiscal and ethical perspective -- is the goal of every conscientious administrator. The Center for Innovative Public Policies (CIPP) published a list of "core competencies" for leadership in correctional facilities. Among the skills most vital to a competent prison leader are: a) to be able to "anticipate, analyze, and resolve organizational challenges"; b) to build and "maintain positive relationships with external stakeholders"; c) to "communicate effectively" and to "comprehend, obtain, and manage fiscal resources"; d) to create a diverse organizational that "promotes respect"; e) to be visionary and to engage in "strategic planning" and develop a vision for the mission of the institution; f) to enhance "self-awareness and maintain proactive professional commitment; g) to "establish organizational authority" and design roles and responsibilities; h) to make sound decisions, manage change, manage labor, manage time and manage "power and influence" in the prison; i) to "leverage the role of the jail in the criminal justice system"; and j) to be competent in the overseeing of the facility, of the inmates, of the physical plant and to "reduce jail-related liability risks" (CIPP).

Disciplinary procedures

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has published literature on managing the prison population which has useful and practical materials. The prison manager needs to have very good, up-to-date information on every prisoner before he or she can be in a position...

Those needs include clothing, food, medical needs, and providing separate cells when necessary.
The administrator should know the length of every prisoner's stay, why he is in the facility, and be updated on the "minimum standard for treatment of offenders" (UNODC). The administrator should: a) never employ a prisoner "in any disciplinary capacity"; b) establish rules so inmates know what conduct "constitutes a disciplinary offence," what types and duration of punishment" may be inflicted for violation of rules"; c) never punish a prisoner "except in accordance" of those rules and laws; d) never permit "corporal punishment" (a dark cell or other degrading punishments); e) never use punishment prejudicial to the physical or mental health of the prisoner; and f) not use handcuffs as restraints except in the case of transfer or during a judicial proceedings (UNODC).

Physical layout of the prison facility

Criminology professor Richard Wortley suggests that riots in prisons can be contained and even deterred depending on the prison layout. The riot in a New Mexico prison became less centrally organized because of the "telegraph-pole design" of the prison. "With no central meeting place, there was little chance for prisoner unity and centralized control" (Wortley, 2002, p. 199). However, the notorious riot at Attica prison in New York State all the prisoners had congregated "…in one of the yards and…