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10: Institutional Safety

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  • Page ID
    69219

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    Learning Objectives
    • Describe how correctional officers detect drug use in prison.
    • Explain how prison gangs affect behavior and control inside prisons.
    • Compare different ways inmates are supervised and secured.

    • 10.1: Drug Use in Prison
      This page outlines the multi-faceted strategies employed by correctional officers to identify drug use in prisons. These strategies include observation, behavioral analysis, intelligence gathering, thorough searches, and awareness of environmental cues. COs look for physical and behavioral signs of substance use and withdrawal, along with changes in inmates’ routines and social interactions.
    • 10.2: Gang Activity in Prison
      This page examines the evolution and governance of prison gangs, focusing on their rise during the 1960s and the shift from informal to formal structures. It discusses their role in regulating illicit markets and ensuring order within prisons while introducing theories like Deprivation and Importation.
    • 10.3: Maintaining Security
      This page discusses the categorization of U.S. prisons into various security levels: super-maximum, maximum, medium, and minimum, each tailored for different inmate types. Super-max facilities are highly secure for the most dangerous inmates, while maximum-security prisons house significant numbers of convicts, including those on death row. Medium-security allows more rehabilitation options, and minimum-security focuses on nonviolent offenders.
    • 10.4: Supervising Inmates
      This page discusses the evolution of inmate supervision in American prisons, highlighting a shift from control-oriented methods to interaction-based approaches for safety and rehabilitation. The traditional indirect supervision focused on surveillance, while the direct supervision model emphasizes continuous officer presence and positive interactions, introduced in the 1970s.
    • 10.5: Chapter Summary
      This page discusses the complexities of the American prison system, focusing on the interconnectedness of inmate supervision, security, drug use, and gang activity. It highlights the role of correctional officers in detecting drug use and the influence of prison gangs in maintaining order. The evolution from indirect to direct supervision emphasizes the dual goals of security and rehabilitation, while acknowledging the challenges faced by staff.

    This page titled 10: Institutional Safety was last modified on Wed, 23 Sep 2026 06:54:49 GMT and is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by George Cartwright.