Major Problems By Prison And Jail House Employees

Major Problems Encountered by Prison or Jail Employees

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Institution]

Major Problems Encountered by Prison or Jail Employees

Both, in the past and now employees of prison or jail face new and unexpected challenges and problems every year and even every single day. Those problems are much in number but some highly crucial and major problems are listed and discussed below.

Overcrowding Of Prisons

According to a report of the US Department of Justice, there is enough decrease has been shown in the overcrowding of prisons in the last few years, but the report has been found up to two years late itself. This means that the report does not reflect in an accurate way on the problem.

In spite of the suggestions that the number of inmate people in the prisons is decreasing with a fine pace, it has clearly known that most of the jails or prisons are still and highly overcrowded (Pyle, 2007). Beyond that, the report shows this because most of the inmates have been unconfined whose posture not much threat to the community or society while the amount of inmate involved in high-level crimes is still steady. So this creates several problems for the employees of prison like security issues, premises management, and monitoring as well as other related problems/issues (Pyle, 2007).

Funding Issues and Gaps

No matter how fine and strong the economy is, but when any considerations of budget cuts are needed then the findings of prisons are limited. On another side, the funding and financing of prisons are as important as the funding for education and health are required. Jails or prison are highly expensive to be built in both terms building and then operating and maintaining. In such limited funds, the employees of prison face huge problems like old facilities are operated instead of building new where the employees are found highly inconvenient with their jobs because of the old facilities (Huling, 2012). Beyond that, the equipment is also outdated mostly which is meant to a compromise on the safety of staff.

Inmates Violence and Staff Safety

The issues of inmate violence and safety of prison or jail employees are highly twine together and always discussed together as a single major concern. The violence of inmate especially in some particular segments like highly risky and dangerous segments creates huge problems for both, the inmates in the prison or jail and staff of the prison. Beyond that, highly dangerous inmates are always kept for longer period of times because of their huge violence and threats to the community or society (Shichor, 2011). So it further enhances the possibility of occurrence of violence in the prison that steadily leads to safety issues of staff members.

As an example, when inmates come to attack on one another, employees or staff members would definitely get involved and will control the situation so this intervention and staff involvement in such situations bring them into risk. Hence, the attacks do not only occur among inmates while they sometimes target staff members (Shichor, 2011). Another point is deteriorated systems and age of the prison or jail. In the case of weaker systems, the inmates have higher opportunities where they escalate the huge threat to the prison employees or staff members.

Innovative Technologies and Modern Practices

At last but not least, lack of innovative technologies has become a major problem nowadays which the prison employees face in the current advanced world. They counter this problem because the prisons always found with lack of new, advanced and innovative technology while advanced practices exist as well on the opposing side.

At the first point advancement of technologies appears as a positive and beneficial component for the prisons. It is highly helpful for the employees in terms of their safety, convenience, and time-saving as well as it simplifies operations and makes efforts simples and easier (Huling, 2012). When the advancement of technology is adopted as on the advancement of practices then the viewpoint is fine and accurate, but the issues that prison employees always have the lack of technology because of no provision of financing for technology advancements.

On the other side, the advancement of technology creates problems for the employees of prison or jails in many ways. In the current technological world, it has been witnessed that inmates highly get benefited from technology where the example of this statement is the growth of miniaturization of electronic and other devices (Huling, 2012). So the smaller devices are found helpful for inmates to smuggle inside the employees and conceal them. So both lack of technology in the operation of prisons because of a lack of funding and increase of miniaturization of the device are the crucial problems that the prison staff members/employees encounter to face.

Similarity to Border Patrol Agents

The problems which prison or jail employees encounter to face are highly similar to the problems of Border Patrol Agents. The prison employees encounter the problem of prison overcrowding while Border Patrol Agents similarly face the problems of illegal immigration of people on borders which increases with fast pace every day (Pyle, 2007).

In terms of funding problems, Border Patrol Agents are also found the people whose budgets are kept much limited as compared to funding for other departments or units.

In the prisons, if employees face the problems of inmates’ violence and staff safety then Border Patrol Agents have the same problem (Shichor, 2011). The problem that Border Patrol Agents face is the violence of legal immigration of people (immigrants) that creates safety problems for Border Patrol Agents.

Lack of technology on one side is a problem for prison employees while on the other hand it is found similar issues for the Border Patrol Agents. Because of lack of technology in some areas/regions like sensors etc., immigrants migrate and cross borders at night time. As well as they cross borders through some holes which are still unidentified to Border Patrol Agents because of having enough and required technology.

References

Huling, T. (2012). Building a prison economy in rural America. Invisible Punishment: The collateral consequences of mass imprisonment, 197-213.

Pyle, K. L. (2007). Prison Employment: A Long-Term Solution to the Overcrowding Crisis. BUL Rev., 77, 151.

Shichor, D. (2011). Myths and realities in prison sitting. Crime & Delinquency, 38(1), 70-87.