Many nations and societies have designed official laws that protect their citizens from offenders’ crimes. Over the years, these laws have been implemented to help retain society from becoming lawless. Different punishments have been used to punish and correct offenders under some form of corrections in correctional organizations. Correctional organizations are complex, hybrid organizations that use two very distinct but related management subsystems to realize its objectives. One subsystem is concerned primarily with managing correctional employees, and the other subsystem is concerned primarily with delivering correctional services to a selected offender population. Therefore, the correctional organization employs correctional personnel to work with and control the other group offenders.
Most prisons aim to provide a safe and secure environment for the inmates, staff and programs for offenders that can help them after being released. Secondly, there are approximately 3,315 jails across the United States, which are locally administered. Their organization and hierarchical levels depend on several factors such as size, budget, level of population, local views toward corrections, and the levels of training and education of the jail administrators. The administration of jails is frequently one of the major responsibilities of county sheriffs. Thirdly, the community corrections such as probation and parole are the last bastion of discretion in the criminal justice system. Community correction is a caring, logical, and effective strategy for working with and correcting criminal offenders. It shows a different approach to handling criminal offenders.
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The administration of correctional organizations such as prisons and jails in our society is unknown and misunderstood. The society sees the administration of these organizations as cruel, discriminatory, corrupt, and lacks a moral base. However, its mission is changing to protecting the citizens from crime through safe and secure handling of criminal offenders while providing the offenders with opportunities for self-improvement. Also, the mission aims at increasing chance that the offenders shall become productive and law-abiding citizens (Richard, 2002). The corrections industry is now a flourishing industry in terms of both expenditures and employment even with the current and wide decline in crime in the United States. However, the number of people under correctional supervision is increasing, and the cost of operation has risen too. Today, about 7 million people are in jail, prison, parole or probation or parole.
About 4,900,000 individuals are on probation, 780,000 are on parole, 2,140,000 are in prison, and 714,000 are in local jails waiting for trial or serving a sentence. Also, correctional administrators are accountable for holding about 3,500 persons on death rows basing on the states federal governments’ capital punishment statutes. There are about 718,000 correctional employees in the United States, bout 455,000 are state employees and 230,000 are local. The custody and management of criminals make corrections an expensive responsibility. It now costs nearly $60 billion per year for corrections undertakings in the United States, compared with $70 billion for the police undertakings as well as $33 billion for court undertakings. The fiscal crisis, which began in 2007, is serving as a catalyst for lawmakers to reconsider who is punishable and how the punishment administration can occur. Thus, it is a new era of sentencing and corrections policy as many states are making cuts to correction appropriation as they are untouchable owing to the perceived impact on public safety.
An organization’s operations function concerns with achieving the organizational goals such as producing goods or services for customers. The function focuses on achieving its goals while managing resources as effective and efficient as possible. Two major functions of the administrative division of corrections central office involve budget development/auditing and new prison construction. The division has the responsibility of gathering information from all of the state’s correctional organizations. Then, the department shall utilize the information to make a budget representing the ongoing operations, favorite programs, and growth. Once the governor’s office approves the budget, the administration division explains it to the legislative budget committee. The committee in turn reviews the requests in the budget and makes recommendations for funding to the legislative body. The division maintains accountability of funds and oversees design and construction of new and renovated facilities.
- Richard P. S. (2002). Correctional Administration: Integrating Theory and Practice. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, p. 11.
- U.S. Department of Justice. (2006). Bureau of Justice Statistics, Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2001, Washington, D.C.: Author, p. 6.
