NCJ Number
86543
Journal
Corrections Magazine Volume: 8 Issue: 6 Dated: (December 1982) Pages: 40-45,47
Date Published
1982
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The corrections training programs provided by the Federal Bureau of Prisons relies heavily on role playing and simulation. Students train with firearms, learn self-defense and riot control tactics, learn how to behave if taken hostage and more. That offered at the National Corrections Academy is more lecture-oriented.
Abstract
All new Bureau of Prisons employees begin their jobs with 2 weeks of institutional familiarization, during which they are taught basic rules, procedure, and self-defense techniques. Only after 6 months or more on the job are they sent to the Staff Training Academy. The 3-week program includes a class on custody and security featuring a nighttime exercise in which students must recapture an 'escaped inmate' hiding among abandoned houses on the campus. A class on riot control includes 2 hours of exercises in which students assemble in riot formation and drive 'rioting inmates' back into their cells. After a 2-hour lecture on hunting for contraband, students must search simulated cells for contraband hidden by the instructors. During the afternoons, students train with firearms and learn self-defense techniques and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The National Corrections Academy in Boulder, Colo., is the major federally funded effort to improve State and local correction officer training. Seminars on academy subjects last from 4 days to 4 weeks, and they are heavily lecture-oriented. A recent week-long course on organized prison violence, for example, made generous use of tips and suggestions from experienced prison security personnel. The National Corrections Academy is promoted as a supplement to and not a replacement for State training efforts. The academy views itself as filling those training voids which States are unable to fill.