Direct Supervision in Correctional Organizations

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 general population inmates; according to Parrish, this means that inmates are allowed access to a common dayroom for ease of supervision during day and evening hours and locked in their cells at night for privacy and to ensure safety; and, 2. An inmate-to-staff ratio in direct-supervision pods of up to 50-to-1 (84). Different communities and states have elected different facilities to provide direct supervision of prisoners as well.

For example, direct-supervision dormitories have been shown to be more economical to construct than their direct-supervision pod counterparts that feature individual or multiple-occupancy cells; however, it remains a point of contention among many jail administrators whether such facilities are easier to manage than their cell-equipped counterparts and whether they can accommodate the same general population inmates (Parrish 84). In this regard, Parrish suggests that, "Somehow the term 'dormitory' is equated with minimum or reduced custody in the minds of many practitioners. In reality, such is not the case.

Physical security is determined by the exterior wall of the pod, which prevents escape" (emphasis added) (84). The freedom of movement allowed inmates within that area is not affected by individual cells with wooden doors and unreinforced walls; Parrish concludes that those types of features simply increase the cost of construction and make the job of the pod officer even more difficult. In response to many of the problems that have been identified with direct-supervision facilities, some corrections organizations have embraced the "borrowed light" concept.

According to Ray Coleman and Chuck Oraftik (2001), borrowed light "is a design and facility planning approach that uses natural light to flood dayrooms and deliver filtered light to cells and other locations in detention and correctional facilities" (97). The borrowed light approach to facility design is based on the American Correctional Association's (ACA) standard that requires "access to natural light"; this process involves four components: 1. Providing individual exercise yards for each dayroom (typically comprising at least 48 beds), which serves as both a security perimeter and dayroom light source; 2.

Flooding dayrooms with sunlight from large, low-security windows between the dayroom and exercise.