Ethical Dilemmas in the American Correctional System

Introduction 

Generally, prisons and jails are places that are full of unethical people who have apparently made poor choices in life. Additionally, such institutions are places of power where the officers have authority over inmates. As such, the correction officers are must choose not to abuse that power. The role of ethics in corrections should be acknowledged and ethical behavior by all those within its walls should be encouraged for a correctional agency to operate effectively. Therefore, ethical behavior is essential for any correctional organization. However, law enforcement has never been able to stay out of negative limelight. The public is constantly seeing daily stories about misconduct of police as well as correctional officers. The reality has always been that, the correctional organizations sometimes fail to adhere to ethics in corrections. 

History of Ethics in Corrections 

It is important to realize that incarceration has not always been a common form of punishment in the ancient world, medieval Europe as well as in colonial America. Some of the common forms of punishment included corporal punishment, social ostracism and forced labor. However, things began to change during the 18 th century enlightenment in France and England. The enlightenment period gave rise to new views on human nature, liberty, and time. The period saw the birth of incarceration as punishment for criminal offences. Incarceration was born out of the concept that restricting a person’s liberty would itself be significant retribution for crime. Therefore, a measured amount of time served could appropriately be assigned in proportion to the severity of the crime committed. 

In the United States, the concept of incarceration as punishment was combined with the early American colonies’ deeply religious worldview. The deeply religious worldview in such American colonies went to the extent of treating biblical crimes such as blasphemy as legal violations. This formed the basis for the establishment of modern prisons. It is important to note that the American prisons are a unique institution with approximately two hundred year history of inhuman treatment of inmates. The inhuman treatment of prisoners has been followed by well-meaning but short-lived attempts at reform. 

The first prisons in the independent United States were established as penitentiaries to imply that the prisoners were actually religious penitents who were serving time for their sins. Additionally, the early penitentiaries in the United States gained both national and international attention for their high goals of perfecting the society through incarceration. However, the penitentiaries soon got overcrowded, dangerous, and dirty despite their high moral aims. The penitentiaries, consequently, began to focus on maintaining control of their populations as their primary task. 

During the late 19 th century, the worsening conditions in the country’s prisons eventually led to the reformatory movement, which attempted to redefine the role of prison as that of reforming inmates into model citizens. This would be achieved through provision of education, work, and counseling. There was also the introduction of flexible time sentences that indicated that reform was actually a variable process that could be completed eventually depending on the individual offender. For the first time, the children in the penitentiaries were separated out from the adult prisoners. However, it is important to note that little accountability was built into early juvenile justice systems and the conditions in the juvenile prisons became far much worse than those for the adults. Furthermore, prisons conditions generally deteriorated to a struggle for control in inhumane and hostile conditions despite the curricula and activities of the reformatory movement. 

The worsening conditions in the American prisons attracted two further waves of reform during the 20 th century. In the 1930s, a building wave of rural institutions such as San Quentin and Sing-sing, led to a significant increase in the size of individual correctional facilities. Therefore, architecture was considered a major component of the better prisons, particularly with attempts to provide more daylight and less oppressive atmosphere for the inmates. However, despite such attempts to improve the prison conditions, the warehouses for thousands of prisoners at a time failed to adequately meet the required basic needs of hygiene and safety for the prisoners. 

In the 1950s, the prison facilities saw major developments in terms of improving the conditions under which the prisoners lived. Modern social scientists took up the treatment of prisoners and sociologists and counselors were brought in to contribute to the efforts towards reform. More new buildings were developed to make more humane environments. The term “corrections,” was also adopted to describe the bureaucracies that would be used to administer prisons hence symbolizing the advent of modernism in the treatment of inmates. Furthermore, the same utopian spirit led to the publication of the 1955 United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. The publication recognized many basic human rights of prisoners. In the same spirit, the architects endeavored to make prison buildings less intimidating by providing spaces for rehabilitation, socialization, learning, as well as activity. However, despite the gentler corrections approach in prisons that characterized the 50s and 60s, prison riots became common and the frequency of prisoner abuse led to the establishment of the vocal prisoners’ rights movement. 

During the 1970s, the judges began to be more receptive regarding claims of prisoners’ rights. The judges started to mandate significant improvements in many conditions for prisoners. Despite such milestones, the new judicial standards intersected with the new crimes, sentencing laws, as well as the prison population explosion of the war on drugs. Unfortunately, the resources for rehabilitation instead went to drug law enforcement. A number of political and economic factors gave rise to the prison boom, which brought the nation to the age of mass incarceration. The incarcerations had far-reaching impacts on those who were affected. As such, incarceration came to be the default setting rather than the backstop of criminal justice system. Although the new prison constructions were meant to solve the problem of overcrowding, they were soon filled to capacity with drug offenders. The contributing factors to the prison boom included the fears of crime and unrest, a backlash against the gains of the civil rights movement, political hysteria regarding drugs, the widening economic inequality as well as a decline in demand for low-skilled labor in industries (Hemmens & Stohr, 2001). The policy response to the trend included new criminal penalties, less reliance on probation, more severe sentences, and parole systems and other alternatives to incarceration. Additionally, there emerged a mushrooming prison building industry in the country. Since the 1980s, the prisons have been established in increasingly remote locations. Additionally, such prisons are loaded with draconian rules as well as intentionally harsh conditions. Furthermore, the super-maximum security prisons that are usually located in isolated and depressed rural areas intended to hold large numbers of inmates for longer terms with no optimism regarding their behavior in prison and afterwards, are currently producing numerous claims of human rights abuses including other problems. 

The racial disparities arising from the system have been staggering. The African-Americans are imprisoned at nearly six times the rate of their white counterparts. The Latinos are also imprisoned almost double the white rate. It is important to note that much of this racial disparity in corrections has been fueled by the war on drugs. The system has impacted disparately to people of color despite the fact that these groups engage in drug use, sales, and possession at rates comparable to their representation in the general population. It is important to realize that the cycle of prison reform followed by the return of the subhuman condition has been the hallmark of the history of ethics in corrections in the United States. African-Americans have historically had a different set of institutions and punishments controlling their behavior. Slavery included the denial of citizenship and basic human rights as well as the public sanctioning of lynching and vigilantism against the blacks both in the American colonies and prior to the Civil War. Even today, the African-Americans still feel that the disproportionate jailing of people of color indicates that the history of separate and unequal treatments at the hands of the law is actually far from over. 

Findings 

Correctional officers engage in various unethical behaviors. Apparently, one of the most common areas of ethical concern pertains to excessive uses of force that occur in penal facilities. Some of the correction officers use excessive force on inmates as a means of achieving control. To date, some of the corrections officers use excessive force against inmates. For instance, in August 2005, two female jail employees were arrested for conspiring with an inmate to assault a fellow inmate. The guards were apprehended for actually using offenders to punish a female inmate who was incarcerated for committing sex crimes against her son. The prison employees tend to mistreat inmates in institutional settings apart from state and local correctional facilities. Moreover, the US military prison personnel are on record for committing acts of brutality against Iraqi detainees. In fact, one military employee stated that they would give prisoners blows to the head, chest, stomach, and legs. The military employee further claimed that such atrocities happened on daily basis. This indicates the extent to which correctional officers can become unethical. 

Moreover, there have also been cases involving male and female guards acting unethically by sexually assaulting the inmate they are paid to protect. In 1998, three female prisoners were sold as sex slaves to fellow male inmates at a federal penitentiary in Pleasanton, California. The event led to a federal lawsuit that saw the Federal Bureau of Prisons settled the suit for $500,000. The prison facility, consequently, agreed to drastic changes in order to effectively curb the sexual abuse of female prisoners. There are several unethical behaviors present in today’s prisons that derail the progress made in improving the welfare of inmates. Such behaviors include inappropriate relationships with inmates, contraband and the prison economy, the prison guard subculture, and solitary confinement of mentally ill inmates. 

Illicit Relationships with Prison Inmates 

Some of the major unethical behaviors that occur in prisons relate to the inappropriate relationships that can develop between inmates and staff members. Inappropriate relationships may be labeled as a form of economic exploitation or even sexual abuse. Sexually abusing inmate in correctional environments is certainly unethical and should not be tolerated in any way. Personal relationships between corrections officers and inmates or even the family members of inmates are common in correctional facilities. The behavior is commonly sexual or economic in nature and has a significant potential to jeopardize the security of a prison institution or even compromise the integrity of the corrections officer involved. 

Much of the research has focused on the forbidden relationships between male corrections officers and female offenders. In 1997, a male prison guard developed rapport with a female offender for whom he was performing favors. The prison officers developed friendship with the female inmate. The friendship soon turned into a physical relationship that involved sexual contact. Matters were even complicated because the court documents indicated that the female inmate had strong feelings of attraction towards the male officer. The defendant was finally convicted of second-degree sexual assault given his criminal and unethical conduct towards his subjects. Majority of the inappropriate relationships in correctional facilities also involve female corrections officers and inmates. Although there may be a perception that low-ranking correctional employees are more likely to have inappropriate relationships with offenders, senior prison administrators are also not immune from behaving unscrupulously with inmates. Recently, for instance, Christine Achenbach, an executive assistant at a federal prison in Colorado, was convicted of having sexual relations with two inmates. It was even believed that she would her inmate lovers about when their cells would be inspected. Achenbach was later sentence to four years of probation and she was also required to register as a sex offender for life. The unethical activities involving corrections officers in prisons indicate that even the upper echelon correctional administrators have the potential to engage in unethical behavior. 

Contraband and the Prison Economy 

Corrections officers can also act unethically by providing inmates with contraband. Currently, most of the prison employees continue to smuggle tobacco to the prison cells. Since tobacco was banned in Texas, it has become the number one contraband items in prisons. My corrections officers and other staff members are smokers and they do not consider smuggling tobacco a violation. As such, some of the prison employees make some extra money by throwing a carton of cigarettes over the wall. The activity presents an easy way of supplementing their income without feeling guilty that they are violating the law. 

In Topeka Correctional Facility, Kansas, roughly 250 employees have at one time been involved in in contraband activities with the prisoners. This indicates the extent to which ethics in corrections have not been adhered to in the United States and elsewhere. The system of exchange involving contraband in exchange of favors demonstrates a serious lack of respect for prisoners. One of the employees at the facility stated that most of the employees view prisoners as garbage and that they will not attempt to reform. It is important to realize that Kansas is not different from other states when it comes to unethical behavior by staff and inmates. Therefore, unethical conduct in prisons is an issue facing the whole country. One of the Topeka Corrections Facility employees, Gallardo, admitted to have brought tobacco and drugs to prisoners and had managed to have sex with at least one of the female prisoners. The officials of the agency stated that the reality of the past conduct among prison employees calls for vigilant investigation. 

At Maryland’s Eastern Correctional Institution, the inmates simply texted guards whenever they wanted drugs, pornographic materials and cigarettes. Therefore, all kinds of contrabands in the facility are just a corrupt corrections officer away. An investigation by the Federal Investigation Bureau and the Maryland’s US Attorney unearthed a massive contraband smuggling ring involving 80 correctional officers, inmates, and accomplices. The involved correctional officers kept many exchanges cash free by handing out cell phones and asking inmates to purchase contraband using PayPal. Furthermore, the corrections officers allegedly extorted offenders in sex-for-drug trades. The officers even forced inmates to use contraband knives on inmates who threatened to snitch. All the people in the know termed the contraband “donuts.” The code word encompassed heroin, cocaine, marijuana, cellphones, a long list of prescription drugs, knifes and pornography. The corrupt corrections officers smuggled contrabands to inmates who would then distribute them at huge mark-ups. From the above, it is clear that corrections officers can go to a great length in violating prison rules and disregard their ethical obligations. 

The Prison Guard Subculture 

The prison guard subculture is responsible for much of the unethical behaviors of corrections officers. The most crucial aspect of the prison guard subculture is the hatred and moral superiority that majority of the keepers have towards the inmates (Hemmens & Stohr, 2001). Although the guard workforce has become diverse over the years, many corrections employees view inmates as untrustworthy, worthless, manipulative, and disreputable deviants. The prison guard subculture, like the police subculture, provides the corrections officers with rationalizations for behaving unethically. Moreover, the veteran prison employees initiate new officers into the subculture. As such, the prison guards are taught by other staff members to never cooperate with superiors, particularly by participating in any activities that may be detrimental to a fellow officer. There are also sanctions if a guard is suspected to be an informer by his colleagues. A tremendous amount of employee misconduct in prison agencies goes unreported because of the guard subculture. Additionally, sexual abuse that is prevalent in female institutions and committed by male guards has gone unreported due to the negative influence of the prison guard subculture. 

Solitary Confinement of Mentally Ill Inmates 

The physicians working in the United States prison agencies are facing ethically difficult challenges that arise from dual loyalties to patients and employers, substandard working conditions, and the prison rules and culture. In the recent years, the physicians have had to face a significant challenge relating to the prolonged solitary confinement of prisoners with serious mental illnesses (Metzner & Fellner, 2010). This is a corrections practice that has continued to be embraced despite the psychological harm it can cause. Generally, solitary confinement is considered as difficult to withstand. In fact, psychological stressors, especially isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture. 

The United States prison officials are on the record for increasingly embracing a variant of solitary confinement to punish and control mentally ill inmates. Isolation can be psychologically harmful to any inmate. The nature and severity of the impact depends on the duration, individual, and the particular conditions. The harm can be worse, particularly to mentally ill offenders. The stress, unstructured days, as well as the lack of meaningful social contact can exacerbate symptoms of illness or even provoke recurrence. Therefore, the prison officials need to take into consideration the effect of solitary confinement on mentally ill inmates. Alternative approaches can be applied to avoid harming mentally ill inmates as they have a right to welfare and safety. 

Future Expectations 

Today, most prisons are horrible places. They are not much more than overcrowded warehouses for the convicted. Although the prisons may be effective in locking away criminals, they achieve very little in terms of ensuring that those who are finally released from custody have a fair shot at rebuilding their lives as well as reintegrating into the community. In fact most of the offenders who are released soon find their way to prison again. Basically, if the purpose of incarceration is just about retribution and public safety, most prison systems have failed horribly. Even the prisons in the world’s wealthiest and most advanced societies have failed justice systems. In the future, we expect to get alternatives to regular imprisonment and asses the possibilities for implementing innovative prison options for the future. The policy makers should be able to consider the appropriate options for the future regarding the interactions between the staff and the offender, the staff and the management, the local prison and the national prison, and the national prison and the probation service. 

Source: New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision 

Generally, the function of prison and probation practice in the future should focus on offering possibilities within restraints. The restraints normally involve limitations of liberty as a result of punishment, retribution, and deterrence. The possibilities will be related to reintegration, restoration, and normalization. In the future, the prison and probation service can significantly contribute to converting restraints, which usually included in the execution of sentences, into possibilities for readiness for change. Therefore, the contributions of prison and probation practice signify optimization of opportunities within constraints. In the future, opportunities can be increased by changing the current system instead of confirming the current faulty system hence reconciling restraints and possibilities in the overall justice system. 

In order to develop innovative options for the future, it is important to ensure that the stay in prison is based on trust. The prisoners should be able to start their program in a regime with many liberties unlike in the present. Additionally, the prison of the future could make it possible for the prisoners to prolong their stay in prison voluntarily. As such, the prison should be reorganized in a way that makes it as open as possible. It might also be interesting if the courts do not impose a prison sentence but rather a deprivation of freedom for a certain period. Consequently, the free-form sentence can be executed in various ways while taking into account the particular risks and needs of the offender. The main objectives of prisons should be reintegration, restoration, reduction of recidivism as well as normalization. In order to ensure effectiveness, the prisons of the future can utilize electronic monitoring, circles of support and accountability and the prison cloud. 

Electronic monitoring can be used for many different objectives in the justice system. It can be used in the pre-trial phase, as an autonomous sanction, as a front door or backdoor option in the execution of sentences in a given country. Additionally, electronic monitoring can be used as special condition to a given sentence. Various interviews with offenders regarding their experiences indicate that electronic monitoring is preferred compared to prisons. This is because electronic monitoring significantly reduces the deprivations of liberty only to certain geographical restrictions and time restrictions because the offender has to be at home at particular hours. The electronic monitoring approach to justice is not only about electronic control but also about human assistance. Basically, the working of electronic monitoring is more of a balance between external and internal control as well as the relationship between control and support. 

The circles of support and accountability involves circle of professionals and non-professional individuals that provide support for sex offenders. Thus, the circle closest to the offender comprises the non-professional volunteers from the community. It is important to realize that the circles help to facilitate social inclusion, risk reduction and risk management, behavioral change, and evaluation and improvement. As such, the focus is not only on integration but also on restoration. Focus is on the physical, moral, and social incapacitation of the offenders. In this model, the balance between the offender’s interests and the community’s interests is of significant importance. 

The prison of the future can utilize the Prison Cloud. The Prison Cloud was developed particularly to support a variety of services. The Prison Cloud will provide the offender with the necessary infrastructure to independently operate from his cell services such as phone call, scheduling of appointments, e learning, movie rental, access to his personal files as well as purchase of products. Moreover, the system will be tailor made for every individual offender. The freedom to communicate with the outside world will be tailored to meet the specific requirements of the offender. The practices of electronic monitoring, circles of support and control and Prison cloud will be effective in balancing change in favor of support instead of control and in favor of internal control instead of external control. This will help in eliminating the opportunities for ethical misconduct and corruption among the corrections officers. 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, it is clear that ethical behavior is the foundation of any professional organization. Therefore, ethics should be a recurring theme in all departmental trainings. The importance of adhering to ethics should be emphasized. Therefore, morality awareness is very relevant in many different circumstances and it is important to ensure that individuals react appropriately to when dealing with others. The correction officers should desist from using excessive force; avoid compromising their integrity and professional standards. Morality awareness can help in encouraging correctional employees to assess any situation, prepare for the worst situation, and even try to de-escalate an incident before it gets out of control. It is also important to realize that resolving a matter peacefully and without further incident is good for psychological health. It is also good for improving general and workplace morality in a supportive and enjoyable environment. 

A very important part of the correction officers’ job is basically the awareness and knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of the inmates in correctional facilities. Although the inmates may be denied certain civil liberties, they should continue enjoying basic human rights as well as constitutional guarantees. If the corrections officers fail to protect the rights of the inmates, the sentenced offenders can actually file lawsuits against erring corrections officers. The corrections officers should ensure that the inmates under their supervision are not discriminated against for their physical appearance gender, race, sexual orientation, skin color, religious beliefs, as well as other relevant attributes. This is because the sentenced offenders have the right to be treated fairly with dignity and respect. 

Both police and corrections administrators fail to pursue actual steps towards the development and implication of such programs for their staff in the long run although they tend to be very receptive and supportive to the general concept of ethics (Hemmens & Stohr, 2001). The most common argument that the corrections administrators offer for failing to pursue ethics education, relates to a lack of funding. However, even if such programs are carried out the challenge of ensuring that there is no ethical violation in prisons will remain. Inappropriate relationships may become common in prisons and they may be labeled as a form of economic exploitation or even sexual abuse. Sexually abusing inmates in correctional environments is certainly unethical and should not be tolerated in any way. Personal relationships between corrections officers and inmates or even the family members of inmates are common in correctional facilities. The behavior is commonly sexual or economic in nature and has a significant potential to jeopardize the security of a prison institution or even compromise the integrity of the corrections officer involved. It is therefore important to ensure that ethics education is implemented in correctional organizations. 

Currently, most of the prison employees continue to smuggle tobacco to the prison cells. Since tobacco was banned in Texas, it has become the number one contraband items in prisons. My corrections officers and other staff members are smokers and they do not consider smuggling tobacco a violation. As such, some of the prison employees make some extra money by throwing a carton of cigarettes over the wall. The activity presents an easy way of supplementing their income without feeling guilty that they are violating the law. Additionally, the United States prison officials are on record for increasingly embracing a variant of solitary confinement to punish and control mentally ill inmates. Isolation can be psychologically harmful to any inmate. The nature and severity of the impact depends on the duration, individual, and the particular conditions. The harm can be worse, particularly to mentally ill offenders. The stress, unstructured days, as well as the lack of meaningful social contact can exacerbate symptoms of illness or even provoke recurrence. Therefore, the prison officials need to take into consideration the effect of solitary confinement on mentally ill inmates. 

Moreover, majority of the law enforcement and correctional organizations set aside large amounts of public funds for funding their officers to learn defensive tactics, use force, and hone their skills and abilities to use weapons in a bid to ensure their survival in the field. 

It is worth realizing that in this age, there is a much greater social focus and media attention on ethical violations in virtually every occupational career field. Any case of unethical behavior is publicized by the media and it can lead to serious consequence in terms of reputation. There are expectations for the future of corrections. The practices of electronic monitoring, circles of support and control and Prison cloud will be effective in balancing change in favor of support instead of control and in favor of internal control instead of external control. This will help in eliminating the opportunities for ethical misconduct and corruption among the corrections officers. 

References 

Metzner, J. L., & Fellner, J. (2010). Solitary confinement and mental illness in US prisons: A challenge for medical ethics. 

Hemmens, C., & Stohr, M. K. (2001). Correctional staff attitudes regarding the use of force in corrections. Corrections Management Quarterly , 5 , 27-40.