In the Trenches: AJA Seminar Highlights
More than 230 exhibitors and 2,000 attendees descended on a breezy, but sun-drenched, Sacramento, Calif., for the American Jail Association’s 27th Annual Training Conference and Jail Expo.
Anchored by the 23rd annual symposium on direct supervision management, the 6-day gathering offered AJA members 45 seminars and workshops covering a myriad of topics from overcrowding to mental health, terrorist identification to gang management and facility design to infectious disease control.
A Big Picture Solution to Jail Overcrowding
Robert Lamkey, director of the Sedgwick County Division of Public Safety discussed issues of overcrowding, re-entry and recidivism. Quoting the recent report by the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project, Lamkey noted that for the first time in history more than 1 percent of adults in the United States — one in 99.1 persons is held in jail or prison.
As reported in the May/June issue of Correctional News, the United States leads the world in the number of inmates per capita, with 750 inmates per 100,000 residents, according to the Pew report. During 2007, the U.S. prison population increased by more than 25,000 inmates to almost 1.6 million inmates, and local jails throughout the United States held 723,131 inmates at the end of 2007.
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| An Aedec representative discusses the Pro-Straint prisoner restraint chair for inmate management. |
The Sedgwick master plan identifies nine alternatives to reduce jail admissions and lengths of stay. Lamkey highlighted the use of mental health diversions, expanded pre-trial services, work and day-report centers, specialized drug courts and traffic centers among the viable alternatives that reduce overcrowding and recidivism.
Based on a comprehensive risks, needs, options assessment model and statistical meta-analysis of system operations, inmate populations and outcomes, the Sedgwick plan was developed in conjunction with Delores Craig-Moreland, Ph.D., associate professor of criminal justice at Wichita State University, and Colorado-based Behavioral Interventions Inc. BI Inc. specializes in providing alternatives to incarceration.
The increasing inmate population is “saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact on recidivism or overall crime,” according to the Pew report. Since 1987, collective spending on state corrections systems has increased from less than $11 billion to more than $49 billion in fiscal year 2007.
However, approximately 67 percent of state inmates return to prison within three years of release, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
BI’s day-reporting center model has yielded a recidivism rate of about 15 percent among inmates who successfully complete the program, according to Tom Hurley, BI’s Midwest regional re-entry manager. Programming is based on research that shows the leading criminogenic risk factors that contribute to recidivism are not unemployment, substance abuse and mental health issues.
Preventing Suicide and Managing Mental Health Risk in Rural Jails
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| Trussbilt’s metal cell exhibit piqued the interest of many of the more than 2,000 conference attendees. |
More than 10 million adults are booked into U.S. jails each year and a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics study reported that an estimated 64 percent of local jail inmates have mental health issues.
The suicide rate among mentally ill inmates is double the rate of the general population, and the study reported that significant amounts of mentally ill jail inmates do not receive treatment during incarceration, while only 17 percent receive post-release treatment.
Connie Milligan, director of the Kentucky Jail Mental Health Crisis Network, and Ray Sabbatine, of Bluegrass Regional Mental Health Mental Retardation Board Inc., discussed inmate suicide risk factors and assessment and prevention strategies, methods and procedures.
The case-study presentation outlined a best-practice model based on a program developed in conjunction with Bluegrass MH-MR Inc. and implemented in the Kentucky jail system in 2004. The collaborative solution to mental health service delivery partners law enforcement agencies with mental health professionals.
The goals of the program are to identify acute mental health symptoms and suicide risk, to reduce the incidence of self-harm and suicide in jails, to provide a secondary level of assessment by licensed mental health professionals and to increase rates of mental health diversion and treatment delivery.
The innovative program involves a four-step process that defines protocols for integrating mental health services into state detention centers, including the use of standardized detention center risk-screening instruments and a telephonic triage to assess levels of mental health risk. The program defines recommended management protocols for each risk level and establishes follow-up services provided by regional community mental health boards.
In addition to mental health service provision, the Kentucky Jail Mental Health Crisis Network is increasing cross training between law enforcement/corrections staff and mental health professionals, while reducing the rate of suicide in Kentucky jails through best-practice protocols, according to Milligan and Sabbatine.
SEMINAR SNAPSHOTS
The Building as an Agent of Change
Ricci Greene Associates’ senior associate Laura Maiello and associate principal April Pottorff, AIA, discussed the benefits — for owners, staff, inmates, visitors and the local community — that can accrue through pursuing a progressive design approach in the construction of a new jail or facility addition.
Joined by Kevin Warwick, MSW, of Alternative Solutions Associates Inc., the presentation also touched upon operational and financial economies and efficiencies generated by adopting a nontraditional approach to local jail facility design.
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| An officer from the Special Enforcement Detail of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department mans a hardware display outside the convention center. |
Managing Special Populations and Gangs
Donald Leach, Ph.D., senior administrative officer with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Division of Community Corrections, Lexington, Ky., and Darren Sieger, M.S., CJM, classification manager with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Department of Detention and Community Control, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., discussed the identification, classification, housing and management of gang members.
The presentation touched on gang culture and structure; identification of gang members and intelligence gathering strategies and tools; interagency and jurisdictional information sharing, data collection and reporting; historic gang management methods and best-practice approaches; assessment, classification and housing strategies and instruments; and ADA-compliance considerations.
FBI National Joint Terrorism Task Force: Correctional Intelligence Initiative — Preventing Radicalization in Prisons and Jails
Correctional Intelligence Initiative — Preventing Radicalization in Jails
Craig H. Trout, Federal Bureau of Prisons Correctional Intelligence Initiative program manager discussed the mission of the NJTTF and its corrections initiative to identify terrorists passing through the U.S. jail system. Trout presented strategies and methods for identifying terrorist inmates and preventing the radicalization of inmate populations in the jail system.
Lieutenant Colonel Rick Frey, director of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Department of Detention and Community Control, outlined his experience in implementing anti-terrorism and radicalization efforts in Florida.
Small Jail Affairs: Conducting Investigations
Capt. Jeff Carter, Internal Affairs Fayette County Detention Center, Lexington, Ky., discussed the rationale for developing an internal affairs unit; methodologies for creating an IA unit; procedures and protocols for organizing its structure and operations; and best-practice interview and interrogation techniques.
Cost-Effective, Headache-Free Jail Foodservice
John Cornyn, FCSI, of Oregon-based food service management consultants The Cornyn Fasano Group examined a variety of aspects and issues associated with food service in the jail setting, from outsourcing and contracts to administration and financial accountability to operations and quality audits.
Corrections Team Test Drives Mobile Security-Detention Showroom The Norix team of Kanche & Assoc. and Rocky Mountain Consultants debuted a new mobile showroom at the American Jail Association conference in Sacramento, Ca. The mobile showroom offers end users the opportunity to get up close and personal with products without leaving their office or facility. Product lines exhibited in the mobile showroom include Derby Industries’ line of mattresses, Vugate video visitation equipment, Intelmate inmate phone systems, Harding Instruments intercoms, MSSI steel cells and wall-panel system, CM Security windows, and Pevac vehicular gate systems. A comprehensive sampling of Norix furniture, fixtures and detention equipment is also displayed in the mobile showroom. |
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