State Department
Georgia’s Correctional System: community-based and institutional setting
Introduction
In the state of Georgia, the Georgia Department of Correction is in charge of the correctional facilities. It protects and serves the public by effectively managing offenders thereby helping to provide a safe and secure environment for the citizens of the state of Georgia. The correctional system of Georgia ranked as the best in the US as it aims to provide effective opportunities for offenders to achieve positive rehabilitation. Georgia Department of Corrections focuses on ensuring public safety, operating safe and secure facilities, providing effective community supervision of offenders and creating an appropriate and conducive environment for the rehabilitation of offenders. Other functions include ensuring the right of offenders and partnering with public, private and faith-based organization
Body
Community-based corrections are a justice system that was introduced in the late80’s and the early 90’s. It is a supervised program that does not involve the incarceration in the prisons. The offenders are however convicted or are facing convictions. Parole and probation have been the main ways of community-based corrections. Most recently work releases, day fine programs, electronic monitoring, curfews and boot camp prisons have been the alternative methods of community-based corrections that have been used to date. Community-based corrections aim at giving an offender, a second chance.
Most of these offenders are petty offenders and it was found out that incarceration of these first time petty offenders causes them to be psychologically affected such that they loose their self esteem and in most cases get disinterested in leading a normal life and resort to being hard core criminals once they are released (Georgia Department of Corrections, 2011).
In the state of Georgia the Department of corrections uses probations as a means of community-based correction. This was done through the passing of the Statewide Probation Act of 1956. The probation sentence may include that the offender serves the community by performing a specified number of hours of unpaid labor. Instead of incarceration, the offender is convicted in terms of the number of hours of community service that he/she is to work. The community service requirement dictates that the offender engages in unskilled labor such as picking of refuse in the residential areas or picking trash on the road side. Sometimes, the offender is asked to contribute labor hours to the landscaping of public buildings. Some offenders in Georgia are involved in more skilled activities such as the mechanical repair of government vehicles, electrical wiring, plumbing and painting. The offenders do the unpaid work under supervision. Communities in Georgia rely on the community service workforce to p[provide services such as collection of refuse (Georgia Department of Corrections, 2011).
The state of Georgia also applies Intensive Probation Supervision (IPS), specialized probation supervision (for sex offenders), and day reporting centers as alternative options to incarceration. There are 13 Day reporting centers that are operational ion the state of Georgia that provides intensive substance abuse treatment for offenders. The main goal of these alternatives to prison sentences is to give the offender the opportunity to rehabilitate him/herself before they reentry to the community at large.
Correctional Division main responsibility is to directly supervise all offenders sentenced to the Georgia Department of Corrections. The Division is in charge of 31 state prisons that houses approximately 60,000 offenders, 6 pre-release centres, 15 transitional centers, 1 offender boot camp, 1 probation boot camp, 12 probation detention centers, 3probation substance abuse treatment centers and 113 probation offices. The Georgia Department of Corrections also oversees the custody of state offenders in 3 private prisons and 23 county prisons. At the pre-release centers, the aim is to address the re-entry needs of the offender so as to minimize the chances of the offender committing a criminal offense once he/she is released. The main goal of the pre-release centers therefore is to emphasize on work such that once the offender is released back to the community he/she has done specific level of work experience (Alarid, & Cromwell, 2007).
State prisons for example Bostick State prison is specifically meant to hold offenders that are violent and those who have a record of repeated criminal activities. Non violent offenders who have exhausted all other forms of punishment such as community service and probation are also detained in the state prison in Georgia. This therefore meant some offenders can be directly be convicted to serve prison term while others may be sent to prison if they revoke term and conditions of community based convictions; For example not showing up to the substance abuse treatment centers. Of the 31 state prisons, three are for women and the rest hold the men. The prisons in Georgia are also classified according to the level of security that is required for the offenders. This is determined by the nature of crime committed, crime history and the offender’s sentence (Siegel, & Bartolla, 2010).
In the state of Georgia, close security prisons holds offenders that have high escape risks, have a history of violence or those offenders of serious crimes. Such offenders are incarcerated throughout their sentence and never leave the confinement of the prison unless they have to and it is under intense supervision. Medium security Georgia prisons holds the largest number of offenders. These are convicts of everyday crimes and do not have major adjustment problems. Most of these work outside the prison area but under strict supervision. The minimum security prison on the other hand hold offenders that pose a very minimal risk of escape, such offenders also abide by the regulations of the prisons and are minimum threat to the community. Minimum security offenders are eligible for transitional centers so that they qualify for reentry back into the society (Georgia Department of Corrections, 2011).
The Georgia Department of corrections also has contracts with two private prison companies so as to hold 5,376 prisoners. The department entered into contract with Cornell companies to construct and run ray James prison in Folkston and also contracted with corrections Corporation of America to construct the Wheeler Correctional Facility in Alamo. Another private prison, the Coffee Correctional Facility is located in Nicholls.
Georgia also has county prisons which are low security. It is in this prisons where the long term prisoners are incarcerated, they provide unpaid but highly skilled work to the 24 counties of the state of Georgia. Offenders in country prisons assist in the maintenance of roads, parks, government construction projects etc (Siegel, & Bartolla, 2010).
Federal Prisons are also available in Georgia, for example the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta Georgia is a medium security federal prison for men. Other federal prisons include; the CI McRae Federal prison is located in McRae in Georgia and it holds men offenders that are not citizens of the US (Alarid, & Cromwell, 2007).
Conclusion
Georgia Department of Corrections controls the prison and the correctional facilities of the state of Georgia. The department is in charge of boot camps, county prisons; court Services, prison facilities directory, court services. It also deals with information about the prison facilities description and operations. The Georgia department also has contracts with private companies to run private prisons. It is also in charge of supervision of community -based convictions where it runs and supervises the offenders until they complete the hours assigned to them by the courts. Overall, the state of Georgia has a well established correctional facility system
Reference
Alarid, L. & Cromwell, P. (2007). Community-Based Corrections. Cengage Learning
Georgia Department of Corrections, (2011).Correction Division. Retrieved from http://www.dcor.state.ga.us on 2nd April 2011
Siegel, L. & Bartolla, C. (2010). Corrections today. Cengage Learning, 2010
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