Corrections Accreditation and Privatization Paper

Corrections accreditation according to our text (Corrections: The Fundamentals), is a system of verification that correctional agencies go by to comply with national standards set by the American Correctional Association, it uses many different forums to attain its goals through reviews, evaluations, audits, and hearings. If an organization wants accreditation, they have to follow a series of steps. The steps are a pre-accreditation assessment, correspondent status, application status, standards compliance audit, accredited status, accreditation hearing, and reaccreditation. There are many reasons for an accreditation, and some are: to ensure that they are in compliance with national standards and to demonstrate they are operating at acceptable levels. This process is set up to properly train corrections officers on what is acceptable and what is not. It is also meant to provide a safer environment for work and training.

Some of the many benefits of accreditation include the assessment of a facility’s strengths and weaknesses, the implementation of policies and procedures, aid in the defense of trivial lawsuits, and a to have a higher level of professionalism. Privatization of prisons is just basically private organizations that have government contracts to operate prisons. They provide many different things to inmates such as food and medical care. Privatized prisons meet the same correctional criteria as state and federal jails, they also compare very well to the federal and state prisons and in my opinion, all maintain the general upkeep of the facility.

I know there has been some debt on this but I think in many cases the privatized systems and the stated and federal prison are alike in many ways they both meet the needs of the inmate’s general needs such as food and health care. The overall point of these facilities is to ensure inmates do their time in a safe environment. In my opinion, all of these correctional facilities could do a better job of rehabilitating inmates by giving them the educational, social and emotional skills they need never to return to prison again.

References Page

Corrections: The Fundamentals, by (Foster, 2006). Published by Prentice-Hall. Copyright © 2006 by Pearson Education, I