Editor’s note: This article is part of the 2010 Corrections1 End of the Year Report. Please visit the main page for the end of the year report here.
By Joe Bouchard
As another year passes into history, we engage in familiar rituals of endism. One of these is looking back at themes and trends of the year. But, are all of our lists the same?
What we consider important is tempered by many things. Some of the things that shape our perceptions are years of service, level of confinement, job position, location, and one’s overall personality. Because of the individual nature of perceptions, I cannot compile a universally accepted list of key trends for corrections in 2010. However, I can speak with great authority for myself. Please regard my troika of trends for 2010 in corrections.
Contraband and counter measures
There is a familiar phrase that I find appropriate: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” With that in mind, let us consider the decade’s most vexing contraband item – the cell phone. It is an instrument of communication that plagues our institutions and challenges security on a daily basis. What was once a limited brick-sized hulk has become a tiny bit of wizardry. We live, in fact, in the realized dreams of Isaac Asimov and other science fiction writers. The smaller, more powerful devices compromise security in new ways with clearer, inconspicuous recording and storage functions. Whatever type of device, from simple cell to high-end Smartphone, enterprising offenders will continue to use and trade them as contraband. As a countermeasure, the corrections product industry will continue to market and develop signal detection devices. Naturally, counter-counter- methods will find their way into our facilities. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Rethinking release programs
Many agencies are seeing reintegration programs go into full swing. Numbers across the board indicate that there are fewer incarcerated Americans, as the focus seems to have shifted to the post-facility phase of corrections. Some facilities have closed because of this, though not all the dire predictions of mass padlocking have come to pass. It seems that many of the release programs take security into account. What will all of this mean for the profession and society? Perhaps those will be trends in 2011 and 2012.
Money
I believe that almost everyone finds the funding issue facing our correctional agencies to be the biggest trend of 2010. As fiscal concerns intensify, priorities are redrawn. What were once considered safe programs and positions are now under new scrutiny. Everything is on the table. Decision makers have to balance safety for staff, offenders and especially for the public against maintaining operations. With this and the other two aforementioned trends, I am hopeful that safety concerns will be paramount.
To some, there is a strange, mystical significance in round numbers and the passing of years and decades. But, just because a year ends in a zero, it does not follow that the year is necessarily outstanding. The flowering of events is rooted in previous years and blossoms at a random pace.
Circumstances determine the norm. Business as usual in corrections continues to change. But it is always packed with the potential for peril. It remains that safety will always be a concern in our profession; no matter the tumbling nuances surrounding each time we assess it. Of course, this is just my opinion. What do you think drove the corrections profession in 2010?
Have a safe 2011.
