Content
Jails must maintain a safe and secure environment to protect their inmates, staff,
visitors, and, ultimately, the community.
To be safe and secure, jail staff must actively supervise and manage inmate behavior.
Jail professionals now realize, however, that all jails, regardless of design, are
responsible for managing inmate behavior to ensure safety and security.
If inmate behavior is managed effectively, jails can be a good workplace for staff, a
safe and clean detention environment for inmates, and a valuable and highly
regarded service for the community. An effective jail administrator will accept
nothing less. Given the importance of inmate behavior management in achieving
safety and security, it may be viewed as the jail’s core function and the jail
administrator’s primary concern.
The inmate behavior management plan consists of six essential elements:
1. Assessing the risks and needs of each inmate at various points during his or her
detention.
2. Assigning inmates to housing.
3. Meeting inmates’ basic needs.
4. Defining and conveying expectations for inmate behavior.
5. Supervising inmates.
6. Keeping inmates occupied with productive activities.
Implementing an inmate behavior management plan requires the following:
■ Clear directives, in the form of written policies and procedures for each step of
the plan.
■ Adequate staffing levels.
■ Staff training.
■ Supervision of staff to ensure that the plan is implemented according to policies
and procedures.
■ Systematic documentation and record keeping of all activities related to inmate
behavior management.
Element 1: Assessing Risks and Needs The first element in the inmate behavior
management plan is to gather information on the risks and needs of each inmate:
Element 2 ■ Risk is a measure of how dangerous the inmate is to himself or herself
and to others and of the likelihood that the inmate will attempt to escape.
■ Need is a measurement of the inmate’s physiological and psychological
requirements for well-being, for example, in terms of medical care, mental health
care, or education.
Comprehensive policies and procedures that address all the components of the
classification process, including who, what, where, when, and how.
■ Forms or instruments for documenting the assessment and classification.
■ A system for evaluating the classification process to measure both how well the
classification system is being implemented and whether it contributes to meeting
behavior management goals.
Element 3: Meeting Inmates’ Basic Needs The third element in the behavior
management plan is meeting inmates’ basic needs, which are no different from
those of all human beings:
■ Physical needs: Things that sustain life and ensure a baseline of human comfort,
such as adequate and nutritious food, protection against the elements, adequate
warmth, physical exercise, medical care, and adequate personal and environmental
sanitation. In the context of the jail, meeting inmates’ physical needs involves food
services, medical services, allowing inmates to maintain their personal hygiene,
providing for physical exercise, maintaining adequate air flow and appropriate
temperature, and ensuring that all areas of the jail are clean enough for a healthy
environment.
■ Safety needs: Protection from harm, including personal injuries resulting from
assault or unsafe environmental conditions. In the context of the jail, this means
ensuring that inmates do not victimize one another, eliminating hazardous
environmental conditions, and developing plans to ensure inmates’ well-being
during emergencies.
■ Social needs: Maintaining contact with family and friends and the opportunity to
have positive interaction with others. In the context of the jail, this means providing
for inmates to receive and send mail; have access to a telephone; visit with family,
friends, and others who are significant in their lives; and interact positively with
other inmates and staff.
@ EMOTIONAL NEEDS Inmate behavior management plans can take advantage of
the fact that even incarcerated persons sense a need to feel good about themselves.
Providing legitimate and beneficial activities such as work, programs, self-help
classes, arts, or crafts will thwart less desirable attempts by inmates to satisfy their
need for reputation, prestige, respect, or esteem at the expense of other inmates or
corrections officers. Jail inmates, like other humans, experience pleasure,
satisfaction, and self-esteem when they complete an assignment and receive praise
or recognition of it, whether it is cleaning a hallway or improving their reading skills.
They will want to repeat the pro-social activities that earned them esteem, which
makes them easier inmates to manage and leaves them with less time to get into
trouble. Inmates also react when they are deprived of these same emotional needs
for esteem, acceptance, dignity, and respect. Their reactions may cause them to be
difficult to manage. If an inmate feels he is being “disrespected” by an officer
working in a housing unit, then he may act out to either force respect or put the
officer down. An officer who gives inmates the impression that there is nothing they
can do to earn his respect is an officer who is left with few effective tools for
managing inmate behavior.
This categorization of human needs is based on the work of Abraham Maslow, a
psychologist who developed a hierarchy of needs that was first published in 1954.1
Well-established case law requires jails to meet the basic needs listed above; failure
to do so may result in costly litigation. However, behavior management is another
compelling reason for the jail to meet basic inmate needs. All human beings seek
ways to meet their basic needs. If the jail does not provide for these needs, the
inmates will find ways to meet them on their own terms. A jail that allows this to
happen will hand over a significant amount of control to the inmates. For example:
■ If inmates do not have enough to eat, they may hoard or steal food.
■ If inmates do not have adequate warmth, they may hoard blankets or clothing or
cover air vents in their cells.
■ If inmates do not have appropriate ways to interact socially with others, they may
become depressed or interact inappropriately with other inmates.
■ If inmates are not physically safe, they may make weapons, pay other inmates for
protection, or form gangs. If the jail does not meet the inmates’ basic needs, it
cannot be safe for either the inmates or the staff.
Element 5: Supervising Inmates The fifth element in the inmate behavior
management plan is supervising inmates to hold them individually accountable for
their behavior. To do this, the staff must interact with the inmates. Note that before
staff can effectively and safely interact with inmates, the jail must fully implement
elements 1–4 of the inmate behavior management plan. Staff interaction with
inmates has a clear purpose: to obtain positive inmate behavior, namely, compliance
with jail rules to achieve the goals of the behavior management plan. In this
interaction, jail staff are in the role of supervisor and require the following skills:
■ Effective decisionmaking and problemsolving skills.
■ The ability to communicate, listen, and provide direction.
■ The ability to treat people fairly and motivate them to engage in positive
behavior. Staff must be able to detect and solve small problems before they become
crises. They should be able to devise strategies to ensure that the inmate housing
unit is safe, clean, quiet, and orderly and then determine the effectiveness of these
strategies through inspection and documentation. Each staff member must serve as
a positive role model for inmate behavior and establish himself or herself as the
person in charge of the housing unit by demonstrating knowledge of jail policies and
applying supervisory skills. All staff should be respectful in their interaction with
inmates and expect the same in return from them.
Element 6: Keeping Inmates Productively Occupied The sixth and final element in the
inmate behavior management plan is keeping inmates occupied with productive
activities that focus behavior on the positive instead of the negative. Jail staff can
keep inmates productively occupied in the following ways:
■ Assigning each inmate work within the housing unit, such as keeping his or her
individual cell clean and participating in cleaning the dayroom area.
■ Allowing positive unstructured activities within the housing unit by providing
reading materials (e.g., newspapers, magazines, books), writing materials, art
supplies, and television.
U. S. Department of Justice PRESORTED STANDARD National
Institute of Corrections POSTAGE & FEES PAID U.S. Department
of Justice Washington, DC 20534 Permit No. G–231 Official
Business Penalty for Private Use $300 Address Service Requested
INMATE PROGRAMS
Almost all jails have some types of inmate programs. At the minimum, these
programs will include opportunities for recreation and religious services. A growing
number of jails understand the role of programs and activities as tools for managing
inmate behavior and in fact, Element Six of the Inmate Behavior Management Plan is
“keeping inmates productively occupied.” The benefit for jail administrators is that
not only do activities keep inmates occupied, but they also contribute to helping
inmates satisfy social and emotional needs. Without that, inmates will find ways to
satisfy those needs in ways that may not be conducive to good inmate behavior
management. As noted in chapter 2, when a jail does not meet inmates’ social
needs, inmates will turn to gangs, criminal subcultures, inappropriate sexual activity,
depression, or selfinjurious actions, which are all unwanted inmate behaviors. Any
program that brings inmates together around a directed activity, allowing them to
interact and accomplish things in a pro-social environment, will meet inmates’ social
and emotional needs. Self-help, therapeutic, educational, or vocational programs
generally have the benefit of meeting social need requirements, but they also help
with esteem needs since inmates feel good about learning and improving their
chances for future success.
SELF-ASSESSMENT A helpful way for administrators to evaluate their jail’s ability to
meet inmate basic needs is to conduct a self-assessment. The first step in
accomplishing a self-assessment is to design or adapt a tool or checklist for this use.
Exhibit 1 is an example of a checklist you can use gauge how well a facility may be
doing at meeting physical needs.
INMATE SATISFACTION SURVEYS An inmate satisfaction survey is another tool that
has been successfully used by a number of jurisdictions to measure how they are
doing in meeting inmates’ basic human needs. These surveys can have other
purposes as well, such as assessing the competence of staff, improving the quality of
services that the jail provides, or using it as a public relations tool or affirmative
defense in case of litigation. Inmates are generally asked to complete the survey just
before they are released, and the completed forms are placed in a sealed collection
box for confidentiality. The results can be tabulated monthly, quarterly, or yearly.
COUNSELLING
Counselling is a broad term used to define the practice of providing
psychological help and advice to at-risk and/or gang-involved youth.
Counselling interventions support wellness and prosocial growth in
participants while addressing the inherent issues in their cognition and
behaviour. Many different branches of counselling can be used as intervention
strategies to help program participants with issues related to risk factors,
including individual counselling, family counselling, addictions counselling,
cognitive-behavioral therapy, etc. Counselling can help address criminal risk
factors in youth such as intergenerational trauma, mental illness, impulsivity,
self-esteem issues, developmental impairments, and anger, among others.
Eighty percent (80%) of projects supported through the YGPF between 2007
and 2012 included this type of intervention.
DRUGS, ALCOHOL AND/OR ADDICTIONS EDUCATION
Drug, alcohol and/or addictions education is a type of intervention designed to
reduce the damage caused by alcohol and other drug dependencies and
teach at-risk and/or gang-involved youth the harms caused by these
substances. This type of intervention is also important in providing youth the
skills needed to resist the appeal of both licit and illicit substances. Drugs,
alcohol and/or addictions education should be administered in communities in
which substance abuse is a common risk factor. Seventy percent (70%) of
projects supported through the YGPF between 2007 and 2012 included this
type of intervention.
MENTORING
Mentoring is a term used to define a trusting relationship in which one
individual (a mentor) provides support, encouragement, and general help to
another individual (a mentee). This relationship is oriented towards providing
at-risk and/or gang-involved youth support and promoting prosocial
development and positive alternatives to negative behaviours and thinking.
Mentoring interventions include activities such as demonstrating and coaching
life skills, tutoring, active listening, providing advice, and managing crises.
Mentoring is a very individualized intervention, and can be tailored to
communities based on a range of issues, including school attachment,
substance abuse, and neglect.
SPORTING / RECREATION ACTIVITIES
This type of intervention has been paired with other interventions such as core
case management and life skills development to promote prosocial
development and physical activity among at-risk and/or gang-involved youth.
These types of activities are used to attract participation in gang and violence
prevention and intervention initiatives, and at the same time, offer additional
benefits (exercise, building life skills, etc.)