The above is a correctional facility that aims at enforcing the law through imposing of punishment depending on the level of crime an individual presented to the institution has made. The department of Oklahoma was established in 1967 it is under the management of a seven-membered board appointed by the Oklahoma governor through the approval by the Senate. Its mission and vision over the years are:
Mission- to protect the nation and ensure public safety, enhancement of a safe working condition for the staff and to develop positive change in criminal behavior.
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Vision- to develop a perception that gives individuals power, strengthen teamwork and encourage interaction between different people.
Values that are associated with Oklahoma Department of corrections include Professionalism, integrity, diversity, rehabilitation and excellence.
Population and demographics
Uniformed personnel
Agency leadership brings out a balance in the ability to respond to daily operational activities while maintaining a safe work environment. This balance is impacted by both the staff skill sets and the number of staff. A lesser number of reporting staff causes working officers to remain at their post until relieved. This leads to some aspects in the correctional facility being left unattended to. Presence of security guards who are unfamiliar with the task increases security risks.
Correctional officers staff as of 2015 was 80% male of an average age of 39years, and the non-staff officers who were 60% female had the mean age 45years. On looking on the racial distribution of the stuff, Caucasian constituted 76%, Blacks 10%, American Indian 9%, Hispanic 3% and Asian 1%.
At the end of the year 2015, the total number of filled workforce positions ware 3,852 which were fewer places less as compared to 2014.
The use of volunteers surcharged the workforce. The volunteers served in various areas. The average number of religious services ware 1,689 per month and the volunteer hours provided for religious activities was 6,586.The average volunteer hours given for activities other than religious was 547 every month.
Inmates
There were 28,871 incarcerated inmates in the year 2015, a figure that excludes those in county jail backup. 55% of the incarcerated inmates were whites and 46% non-white. The principal offenses committed by the incarcerated prisoners were crimes that were not violent. The age of the incarcerated prisoners was averagely 38years.
For the parole prisoners, they were 22,957, and the majority were white males. Majority of them had been involved with less violent crimes.
Parole inmates, most of whose average age was 46 years were 2,981 and majority of them were white males and most of the probation clients had committed non-violet crimes.
Inmates serving life sentences without probation constituted 4% of the whole inmates’ number. Those received because of probation revocation constituted 23% of the total inmate reception in the year 2015, 56% of these patients were brought into the institution with no a new case while 43% brought in with a new case issue. The department of corrections in Oklahoma facility has always been ranked the first with the highest number of female inmate incarceration nationally.
A report from the Urban Institute of the year 2008 on offenders' re-entry health showed that there was a bad health status of persons admitted to prisons as compared to the health of individuals not admitted to such correctional institutions. Williams et al, .(2010) highlights on the increase of aging of inmates, a factor that has been
Contributed by the long sentences that the inmates serve. The situation is made worse by the unhealthy life practices accompanied by substance abuse inside the facility. In Oklahoma Department of correction, the population of incarcerated inmates aged 50 years and above has considerably grown, a factor has led to an increase in health care expenditures in the agency.
Various factors are responsible for the increase in the cost of inmate health and medical care spending. First of all the increased average age of prisoners makes them less immune to illnesses. Secondly, an increase in offender’s population causes overcrowding in the facility and accelerate the spread of diseases such as those that are airborne (Hoge et al, .1994). Besides the above, an increase in salaries of health and medical care personnel and also growth in costs of medication of non-Oklahoma correction facility practitioners and services has also contributed to the huge change in healthcare expenditure. Other factors include; improved quality of care, adherence with community standards of care, improved quality health and medical care, and advancement of medical costs and technology.
Programs
Prisoners’ treatment program
It is of importance that the programs provided to the prisoners are efficient and of quality. The Program Service unit has the mandate to deliver quality programs that are concerned with the inmates, prepare the inmates for re-entry into the community after serving their sentences and reduce recidivism. Program Service Unit oversees delivery of education, cognitive restructuring, vocational training and substance abuse programs.
Chief Administrator of Program Services
This Program is concerned with the developing programs, standard operating procedures, designs of programs, program assessment and collection of data for all programs provided to the inmates.
Besides, the administrator determines the appropriate time for placement of the inmates into specific programs for better utilization of resources and also the program effect. Also, the chief administrator of the program ensures the resources are optimized to provide a system where assessment of services can be done and streamline them only to include those that cater for different needs of the inmate and at an appropriate intensity. He is also responsible for coordination with other agencies and providers of different services to provide various programs that help in reduction of prisoner recidivism and also transitioning from incarceration to the community as better citizens
The chief administrator also supervises agency staff providing services in; relationship groups and family, anger management, domestic violence, life skills, parenting and thinking for a change programs.
Education programs - The training provided is available at all levels of officers who are supervisors. Besides, academic education is also provided to inmates. There is also a provision of Adult Education for those who show high achievement between sixth and ninth grade levels. General Education is also available to prisoners showing a greater performance at or above ninth grade and they do not have a high school diploma. It is not only the inmates that are provided with education, the officers are also trained on how to handle different correctional tasks (Fuller, 2009).
Substance Abuse treatment program- This program addresses addiction and illnesses related to drug consumption. The treatment period ranges from four months to a year as per the inmate's needs. During the inmate treatment period, information is collected and analyzed to ascertain the efficiency of that program (Latessa, 2004).
Cognitive restructuring program- This is a program that addresses criminal thought processes. As an inmate goes through this program, he/she is instilled with values that will promote positive change in the inmate's behavior. This program gives the inmate an opportunity to analyze his/her behavioral patterns by the identification of what triggers him or her to criminal behavior.
Career education Training- The main objective of this program is to enable inmates to learn different skills before returning to the community. Various technical training activities are available at specific sites and supervision levels.
Life Skills teaching program- It is a program that provides inmates with the information that they can use in enhancing their lives. In this program, skills are enhanced with an aim of helping an inmate function well upon going back into society.
Specialized Programs-These are programs that address criminal thinking. Offers an inmate opportunity to examine his/her behavioral patterns and take responsibility.
Support programs are chosen by the inmate based on the inmate’s interest. Heads of the facility are responsible for approving these support programs.
In the year 2015, there was a significant increase in the number of reported inmates mental issues compared to those in the outside community. Due to this, there was an intervention of the State Mental Health and Substance Abuse department that developed the Mental Health Re-entry activity which enabled easier transitions of prisoners with severe mental Illness to community mental health facilities that were responsible for the inmate prior discharge to working in the community.
Organization structure
Board of Corrections
i. Director's office
• Administration
a) Business service
Finance and accounting and Offender banking
b) Human resource
Benefits (Payroll, Staffing, Recruitment and Employee Grievances)
c) General Service
Contracts and acquisition and Document services
d) Health Services
Medical and mental health care services.
• Communication
Executive communications
Public Information Officer
Victim Services
ii. Senior staff
• Population, Progams and strategic planning
a) Classification and Population
Sentence Administration, Central Transporting unit and Population.
Analytics and evaluation
Program Services
b) Education, Grants, Religious Services and volunteer coordination and re-entry services.
• Honour Guard
• System Quality Management
• Food Service Quality Assurance
• Community Sentencing
Female offender diversion program.
• Auditing and compliance
a) Internal auditing
b) Operations Compliance
c) Policy Procedures
d) Health Service Compliance
• Legislative Liaison
• General Counsel
a) Legal
b) Administrative Review Authority
iii. Chief Of Staff
• Special Operations
a) Fleet Management
b) Information Technology
c) Safety Administration
• Training
• Maintenance and construction
• Employee rights and relations
• Oklahoma Correctional Industries
• Agri-services
• Probation and Parole Services
• Region I
a) Oklahoma State Penitentiary
b) Northwest Oklahoma Correctional center
c) Mark Alford Correctional Center
d) Jess Dunn Correctional Centre
e) Howard McLeod Correctional Centre
• Region II
a) North Fork Correctional Facility
b) Mabel Bassett Correctional facility
c) Joseph harp Correctional Facility
d) James Crabtree Correctional Facility
e) Billy Johnson Correctional Facility
• Region III
a) Cimarron Correctional Facility
b) County Jail Contracts
c) Davis Correctional Facility
d) Halfway house contracts
e) Lawton Community Corrections Centre
f) Oklahoma State Reformatory
• Inspector General
a) Fugitive Apprehension
b) Investigations
c) Intelligence
d) Law enforcement Communications
e) Administration Security
References
Fuller, M. (2009). Cultivating Human Performance: Correctional Officer Preservice Training in Oklahoma. Law Enforcement Executive , 87.
Hoge, C. W., Reichler, M. R., Dominguez, E. A., Bremer, J. C., Mastro, T. D., Hendricks, K. A., ... & Breiman, R. F. (1994). An epidemic of pneumococcal disease in an overcrowded, inadequately ventilated jail. New England Journal of Medicine , 331 (10), 643-648.
Latessa, E. J. (2004). The challenge of change: correctional programs and evidence ‐ based practices. Criminology & Public Policy , 3 (4), 547-560.
Williams, B. A., McGuire, J., Lindsay, R. G., Baillargeon, J., Cenzer, I. S., Lee, S. J., & Kushel, M. (2010). Coming home: Health status and homelessness risk of older pre-release prisoners. Journal of General Internal Medicine , 25 (10), 1038-1044.
