The correctional system in the United States has evolved over the years. In the contemporary America, the correctional setting has seen the development of a number of policies and laws to protect the rights of prisoners serving prison terms in community service. However, there are misconducts, which community corrections professionals commit in the course of the execution of their duties (Pollock, 2012). One of the misconduct by community corrections professionals is the act of selling of paroles to prison convicts before the completion of their prison term.
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According to (Pollock, 2012, p. 416) some of the professional officers in charge of the community corrections fail to keep track of the individuals serving paroles. Moreover, such officers in charge of the community corrections have been accused of rushing into giving out paroles into non-disserving prisoners. According to the author, most of the paroles issued to the prisoners in the community corrections are done haphazardly in short time without proper considerations of the prisoner’s behavior and past offences recorded in public.
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The other misconduct by community correction professionals is the hiring of their relatives to work in the centers. Some of the relatives hired have little knowledge and training to serve in correctional facilities. This often leads to ethical problems such as inappropriate determination of punishments. For example, if a junior employee in a correctional center is related or married to a senior officer in charge of the community correctional center, the officer may not be in a capacity to report sexual misconduct to a prisoner by such a senior employee.
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Some community correctional professionals have been accused of having sexual relations with the prisoners (Simonian & Smith, 2006). This amounts to misconduct and is against the federal law of criminal justice. Such community correctional officers engage in sexual relationships as a form of giving favorable treatment to the prisoners. In addition, such relationships hamper the administration of justice, since the officers may not be in positions to administer punishments (Worley, Marquart, & Mullings, 2003). Other misconducts include the excessive use of force while offering punishments to the inmates, which may cause injury. Some community professionals also accept crimes in return to protecting the inmates against charges related to crimes such as drug abuse and sale. Similarly, correctional officers may abuse their authorities by forgetting an appointment or forgetting to let them out when their prison term is over and ignoring their necessities.
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Some of the Explanations for the Misconducts
According to (Pollock, 2012), most correctional officers fail to observe their professional ethics of conduct and end up developing close relationships with the prisoners. Such relationships may develop more and lead to sexual relations. The other explanation for the misconduct of correctional officers in community correctional centers is excessive pressure that results from the workload. Most of the correctional officers have huge workloads and this often gives them pressure, which leads them into hiring their relatives in order to relieve them of their workloads. Moreover, the failure of state departments to offer adequate training and enough funding to hire qualified staff is attributed to the misconduct of the community correctional officers.
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The other explanations related to misconduct of the community correctional officers is the organizational explanations (Pollock, 2012). There is a general feeling that the prison environment is like a jungle, which creates hopelessness and frustration among the prisoners and the inmates. Although few of the community correctional officers engage in abuse, the institutional culture shields them since there is a general believe that the prisoners are always wrong and the correctional officers are right. These have been pointed as some of the explanations for the misconduct of the community correctional professionals.
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