Core competencies for correctional facility leadership and management

¶ … 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 to make the best decisions on "…security, food supply, transportation requirements, staffing needs" and also keeping good discipline means providing the adequate needs for the inmates. 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).

Gang control in prisons

The American Correctional Association (ACA) states that gang members account for just 1.2% of all state and federal prison inmates. Some prisons have used a strategy that disperses gang members throughout the "entire system" and sends some gang members to other prisons outside their own state (to deter cohesiveness among members of the same gang). Other strategies include: "gang renunciation and debriefing programs"; rival gang "integration programs"; "informants"; "…in-prison prosecutions"; and "identification, tracking and information-sharing systems" (ACA).

Grievance procedures

The United Nations Handbook states that "No prisoner shall be punished unless he has been informed of the offence alleged against him and given a proper opportunity of presenting his case"; moreover, when "practical" the prison should be allowed to make his defence through an interpreter" (UN).

Humane Institutions

Prisoners should be treated humanely even when they are being punished for violation of the rules that apply in any particular institution (UN). Putting a prisoner in a dark small space for punishment is inhumane, and reducing a prisoner's nutritional intake is also inhumane (UN).

Screening and classification

The UN makes a point of how vital it is that the prison officials know "who are in their prisons at all times" and this information should be kept in a "central and secure place and be constantly updated" (UN). Competent prison management "is critical to ensuring that their human rights are respected" and it is critical in terms of "the management" of the prison to have inmates classified and screened and told exactly what is expected of him or her.

Staff Training and education

The Center for Innovative Public Policies asserts that prison officials "build and maintain positive relationships" with staff and to maintain "teamwork" which includes mentoring and coaching staff (CIPP). To "…obtain and manage human resources" means to train and educate staff (CIPP).

Use of force

Earlier in this paper it was noted that prison administrators should never permit "corporal punishment" (a dark cell or other degrading punishments); and should never use punishment prejudicial to the physical or mental health of the prisoner; and should not use handcuffs as restraints except in the case of transfer or during a judicial proceedings (UNODC).