What is the best solution for jail overcrowding?

The best solution might be using a combination of different efficiency measures. These same efficiency measures and alternative programs have been tested in jurisdictions throughout the country. Communities across the U.S. have sought to avoid the need for larger facilities without compromising community safety, and many have been successful in doing so with this system. Some examples of these efficiency measures include:

Citation programs: Programs that give citations to offenders without booking them through the arrest process. These citations can entail a notice to appear or a desk appearance ticket, and eliminate unnecessary jail bookings. This solution has been used in the case of low-level, misdemeanor crimes (Kaplan, 2004).

Improving Release Procedures for the Pretrial and Sentenced Populations: These improvements decrease jail populations by ensuring that people are moving through the system in a timely fashion (Kaplan, 2004).

Monitoring / Expediting Detention Cases: Hiring case monitors to continuously review jail inmates to identify those who could be diverted from the jail or individuals whose cases could be diverted in some manner to other correctional systems (Kaplan, 2004).

Describe the challenges facing women who work as correctional officers.

One challenge would be the questions about abilities and appropriateness of women correctional officers working in adult correctional institutions. Also, women correctional officers are perceived as not as capable of performing their job as men (Tewksbury & Collins, 2006).

Female correctional officers are often in contact with violence in various ways. These officers...

In such situations, the officer is physically involved in the altercation, and she can be the target of aggression (Researchers investigate the…, 2004).
Female correctional officers also report a higher degree of job-related stress than do males. They also face the challenge being the victim of sexual harassment by the inmates. The image of a correctional officer is another challenge; women do not fit into the typical schema of a correctional officer (Researchers investigate…, 2004).

Bibliography

Coppola, a. (2008, Mar 3). Shock it to me . Retrieved Apr 6, 2009, from corrections.com: http://www.corrections.com/news/article/18117

Kaplan, D. (2004, Feb). Why not in our county? Cost-effective solutions to jail. Retrieved Apr 6, 2009, from realcostofprisons.org: http://realcostofprisons.org/materials/jail_reform_natl.pdf

MacKenzie, D., & Armstrong, G. (2004). Correctional boot camps: military basic training or a model for corrections? Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Researchers investigate the world of female corrections officers. (2004, Nov 15). Retrieved Apr 6, 2009, from University of New Brunswick: http://www.unb.ca/perspectives/view.php?id=253

Reynolds, M. (n.d.). Three strikes and you're out. Retrieved Apr 6, 2009, from Most frequent objections: http://www.threestrikes.org/mikescorner.html

Tewksbury, R., & Collins, S. (2006). Aggression levels among correctional officers. The Prison Journal, 327-343 DOI: 10.1177/0032885506290853.

Walsh, J.E. (2007). Three strikes laws. Santa Barbara: Greenwood.