Question

What are some issues and challenges are associated with budgetary problems in correctional facilities? (cite sources)

What are some recommendations for reducing the budget? (cite sources)

Answer 1

Correctional facility is a terminology referred to a Jail/prison where a person is kept after getting arrested and are punished for a crime. These facilities are on-going and require large sized budget for maintainence but face some challenges such as:

1. Most of the facilities are overcrowded with criminals but not sufficient employees to manage them. With the increasing population, more number of criminals are on the rise but equivalent number of individuals are not joining forces to prevent the law. This is due to employment in this sector does not offer sufficient financial security/emoluments which encourages individuals to join the force.

2. Government intervantion/restriction causes budgetary issues in allocation to such facilities. The Central government may not have allocated sufficient budget to the overall sector. Regular maintainence of existing facilities consumes most of the budget.

3. Since there shall be a requirement of skilled professional for handling various types of individuals, it can be a costly affair to manage the compensation of such professionals. The skilled professionals are required to possess muliple emotional level characteristics to understand the mindset of the criminals. Not many people may possess it as a career path and those available will require large budget allocation to be kept aside.

4.Classiciation calculations, Failure to follow procedures and mistakes by fatigued/inexperienced staff can cause more budget to be allocated for training or possible wastage of existing resources allocated.

5. The turnover rate of employees is very high due to stress, fatigue and confusion. Recreation, family visits and training programs are often the first to go when staffing levels dip, and the combination of overworked correctional officers and frustrated inmates can lead to potentially dangerous situations. This in turn causes more budget in recrutiment of employees and then further training them to get them accustomed to the environment.

Certain recommendations for improving the budget are:

1. Identify needs to sytematically and regularly examine its operations, staffing and facility conditions to impove the needs.

2. Prioritise the needs depending on the budget restrictions.

3. Develop strategies to address needs. If the needs are unmet, necessary provisions should be made to fill in the gap which could be through other agencies or from the community.

4. Identify the potential resource providers (financial and non-financial) and also determine its availability and quantum to be allocated. These could be in the form of :

a. Grants

b. Payments, Subsidies and Re-imbursements

c. Boarding Contracts

d. User Fees regarding legal authority, administrative requirements for tracking and managing accounts, and estimates of potential revenue.

5. Match the resources to the needs and enssure they are correctly allocated depending on the requirements and urgency.

6. Integrate new resources into Jail operations.

7. Supervise, Monitor and Evaluate to make sure the resources are getting effectively distributed. Information from ongoing monitoring and evaluation can help determine changes needed in programs and services and can justify requests for acquisition of future resources.

The resources for getting the above information is a combination of general information on the sector of correctional facilities and the below links:

Issues for Budgetary allocation:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-07-26/understaffed-and-overcrowded-state-prisons-crippled-by-budget-constraints-bad-leadership

Suggestions for Budgetary allocation:

https://info.nicic.gov/nicrp/system/files/017627.pdf