Addressing the Program Needs of Long-Term Inmates

• NCJ Number: 128210
• Journal: Prison Journal Volume: 80 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring-Summer 1990) Pages: 73-82
• Author(s): E L Cowles; M J Sabath
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 10 pages
• Grant Number(s): 84-IJ-CX-0043
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Survey

Annotation

The Missouri Project, an exercise in which long-term offenders, corrections officers, and treatment professionals identified problem areas associated with long-term imprisonment, led to an attempt to design programs for this population. Three approaches are considered: the concept of institutional work careers, a program to provide long-termer career opportunities while simultaneously enhancing institutional services, and an attempt to deal with the issue of inmate-staff communications.

Abstract

The three key elements in developing long-termer programs acceptable to all stakeholder groups are security, control, and quality of life. Programs to provide meaningful institutional careers for long-term, as opposed to short-term, offenders are very different. The Software Development Program is one effort in which long-termers devote a substantial period of training to a career that provides continuing challenge and progression to higher skill levels. The Jefftown video productions program offers another type of positive work environment for long-term offenders and one that could permit the Department of Corrections a means of increasing services to the entire prison population. The Inmate Forum is designed as a mechanism to improve the communications between staff and inmates and to ensure that the perspectives of long-term offenders are included in programming activities. Integrated long-term offender strategies are needed to improve the management of this population. 1 table, 3 notes, and 8 references