Inmate Behavior Management Initiative Enhancement

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The most fundamental goal of every jail and prison is to maintain a safe and secure environment for inmates, staff, and visitors. Effectively managing inmate behavior is critical to achieving this goal. Traditionally, jails and prisons have sought to control inmates solely through physical containment, namely, hardware—locks, steel doors, security glass, and alarm systems. Staff safety was believed to depend on maintaining physical barriers between staff and inmates. In the absence of staff management of inmate behavior, however, the emphasis on physically containing inmates failed to keep facilities secure. With inmates left to their own devices inside cellblocks, problems such as violence, vandalism, and lack of sanitation became so common they seemed inherent to correctional institutions, which, along with communities, have paid dearly for these problems through costly litigation, staff and inmate deaths, riots and fires. These issues, in varying degrees, remain common in the nation’s jails and prisons; however, we have learned over the last thirty (30) years that these problems can be virtually eliminated by reducing the barriers between staff and inmates and requiring staff to actively supervise and manage inmate behavior. If inmate behavior is managed effectively, jails and prisons can be a good workplace for staff, a safe and clean correctional environment for inmates, and a valuable and highly regarded service for the community. Services under this initiative focus on the elements of inmate behavior management, which are relevant to all types and sizes of jails and prisons. NIC’s services related to direct supervision are also included under this initiative.

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