1. Chapter 6
Jails:
Way Stations Along the Justice Highway
McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.

2. Key Terms
 Jails – Local (or combined with State) operated
correctional facilities that confine people before or
after conviction.
 Inmates sentenced to jail usually have a sentence of one
year or less.
 Total Admission - The total number of people
admitted to jail each year.
 Average Daily Population (ADP) - The sum
of the number of inmates in a jail or prison each
day for a year, divided by the total number of days
in the year.
6-2

3. Jails in History
 King Henry ordered the first jail built in 1166
 John Howard’s Four Jail Reforms
 Secure and sanitary structures
 Jail inspections
 Elimination of fees
 Emphasis on reforming prisoners
 The first jail in America was the Walnut
Street Jail in Philadelphia 1773
 Housed offenders with no regard to sex, age, or
offense
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4. American Jails in the 20th Century
 Detain people awaiting arraignment or trial
 Confine offenders serving short sentences
 Serve as surrogate mental hospitals
 Frequently detain people with drug or
alcohol dependency
 The homeless, street people, some with
extremely poor physical health including
many with HIV, AIDS, and tuberculosis (TB)
 Rabble management
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5. Architecture and Inmate Management
 First-Generation Jails
 Jail with multiple-occupancy cells or dormitories
that line corridors arranged like spokes
 Inmate supervision is intermittent; staff must
patrol the corridors to observe inmates in their
cells
 Officers often do not enter the housing units
unless there is a problem
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6. Architecture and Inmate Management
 Second-generation jails
 Emerged in the 1960s to replace old, run-down
linear jails and improve visual surveillance
 Staff remain in a secure control booth
surrounded by inmate housed areas called pods
and surveillance is remote
 Verbal interaction between staff and inmates
even less frequent than in linear jails
 Property destruction minimized through
continued use of steel and cement
6-6

7. Architecture and Inmate Management
 Third-generation jails
 Direct-supervision jails
 Inmates are housed in small groups staffed 24
hours a day by specially trained officers
 Officers interact with inmates to help change
behavior
 Bars and metal doors are absent
6-7

8. Architecture and Inmate Management
 Fourth-Generation Jails
 Incorporates natural light into the
dayroom; “borrowed light”
 Brings program services, staff,
volunteers, and visitors to the housing
unit
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9. Jails
 Many of the nation’s 3,365 locally
operated jails are old, overcrowded, poorly
funded, inadequately staffed by underpaid
and poorly trained employees, and given
low priority in local budgets.
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10. Jail Inmates
 In June 2011, local jail authorities housed
or supervised 837,833 offenders
The number decreased for the first time
since the federal government began its
annual survey of jails in 1982 when the jail
population was 223,551. Growth in the
U.S. jail population has been slowing since
2005.
6-10

11. Jail Inmates
 Thirty-eight percent of the jail inmates are
not yet convicted, 87.8 percent are male,
42.5 percent are white, 39.2 percent are
black, and 16.2 are Hispanic.
6-11

12. Characteristics of Jail inmates
 • 80 percent earned less than $2,000 a month before they were
locked up.
 • 75 percent who had mental health problems also had co-occurring
substance abuse or dependency issues;
 • 68 percent had not seen a health-care provider since
incarceration;
 • 64 percent suffered from some form of mental illness;
 • 55 percent of females had been sexually or physically abused;
 • 50 percent grew up in homes without both parents;
 • 46 percent were not taking their medication at the time of arrest;
 • 44 percent had less than a high school education;
 • 40 percent had a criminal history;
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13. Women in Jail
 The number of women in jail has more
than quadrupled over the past 25 years
 In 1985 there were 19,000 women in
jail
 In mid-2006 there were 100,572 women
in jail
 The typical female jail inmate is poor, a
high school dropout with one to three
children, and belongs to a racial minority
 Two-thirds of women in jail are mothers
with children under the age of 18
6-13

14. Mental Illness
 At midyear 2007, almost two-thirds (64
percent) of all jail inmates had a mental
health problem compared to about 11
percent of the general population.
6-14

15. Juveniles in Jail
 Cities and states may detain juvenile
offenders up to 12 hours in an adult jail
before a court appearance.
 In 1995, 76% of the 7,800 juveniles
confined in the nation’s jails were held as
adults.
 Currently, 81% of 5,847 juveniles are
housed as adults.
6-15

16. Jail Staff
 An estimated 297,600 people work in the
nation’s jails
 Women comprise one-third of all jail
employees
 One-fourth of all corrections officers
 66% of all jail corrections officers are white,
24% are black, 8% are Hispanic, and 2% are
of other races
 Problems of jail staff: substandard pay; low
job prestige; high turnover; and inadequate
systems for recruitment, selection, and
training 6-16

17. Privatization
 A contract process that shifts public
functions, responsibilities, and capital assets,
in whole or in part, from the public sector to
the private sector
 Jails can be privatized in one of three ways:
1. Private management
2. Private sector development
3. Private services provision
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18. Jail Issues
 The jail managers cited inmate mental
health as their top concern and
recommended that the government give
jails more support in that area.
6-18

19. Educational and Vocational
Programs
 National studies show that more than
40 percent of all jail inmates have less
than a ninth-grade education.
 Studies show that inmates who earn
their GEDs while incarcerated are far
less likely to return to crime.
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20. Religious Programs
 Getting into trouble and turning to
religion is supported by the coping
literature
 Inmates actively involved with Bible
studies commit less institutional
infractions and are less likely to be
rearrested
6-20

21. Benefits of Jail Chaplaincy
 Jail chaplains believe that the cycle of crime can
only be broken one life at a time
 Chaplains can help jail staff with their emotional
and family problems
 Chaplains are in a unique position to mediate
and moderate tensions and conflicts between
inmates and staff
 The public perceives ministering to the
disadvantaged as legitimate
 Chaplains can help inmates confront the truth
about themselves 6-21

22. Accreditation
 Process by which correctional facilities and
agencies can measure themselves against
nationally adopted standards and through
which they can receive formal recognition
and accredited status
 JAIL ACCREDITATION: Formal approval of
a jail by the American Correctional
Association (ACA) and the Commission on
Accreditation
 Only 131 of the nation’s 3,365 jails are
ACA-accredited
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23. Reasons to have ACA Accreditation
 Protect health and safety of staff and
inmates
 Defense against lawsuits over conditions
of incarceration
 Preparing for accreditation leads to self-
evaluation
 Professional recognition and status,
greater appreciation by the community,
and a sense of pride in the achievement
and in the hard work that went into it
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24. Workforce Development
 Jail staff need strong communication skills,
knowledge of the psychology of behavior,
multicultural sophistication, ethnic and racial
tolerance, human management expertise,
endurance, and fitness
 ACA’s national Commission on Correctional
Certification and online Corrections
Academy recognize jail staff as qualified
correctional practitioners
6-24

25. Evidence-Based Practices
 Evidence-based practices based on
recommendations from National Institute
of Drug Abuse are in place in more than
half of all jails, but have still not been
rigorously evaluated. These include:
 Comprehensive treatment methods
 Engagement with community agencies
 Use of positive incentives
 Standardized substance abuse assessment
tools
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