Corrections Issues Analysis

Posted: September 5th, 2013

Corrections Issues Analysis

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Corrections Issues Analysis

            The 1978 Federal Court Interpreters Act created a need for court interpreters at the national and state level. Interpretation is the enabled communication between the court and a person that speaks a foreign language or a deaf person. They realize that denying the minorities services from interpreters appointed by the court is same as denying them their constitutional right. This right assures them a fair trial. The courts are usually aware of the disadvantages that accrue due to failure of providing sufficient foreign language interpretations to linguistic and the deaf minorities. In addition, failure to use competent interpreters to provide these services usually averts provision of quality services. With the continued demand of court interpreters, there continues to be a challenge of finding qualified ones. The court specifies that lack of adequate training makes it hard to gauge the qualities and experience of an interpreter. Lack of adequate training also makes it hard for them to know the training requirements the interpreters should posses (Hanser, 2010).

In future The Interpreter service Program intends to offer adequate training for the court employees to ensure the person receiving the service receives a fair trial. The court interpreters will receive more training on ethical issues, court system, code of behavior and legal vocabulary. This will help increase their competence. They will team up with the domestic violence networks to help the interpreters, and the caseworkers to build up great professional standards. They will create a report on appellate matters about what interpreters use in court. They will also produce and issue a book for the judges concerning employment of interpreters in court. The interpreter service program, therefore, focuses on working with the courts and the interpreters to employ more programs. It also aims to avail more training opportunities for the interpreters, implement rules and procedures that will enable more consistency and fairness when using interpreters (Reichel, 2008).

The inmates in prisons serve periods more than a year. Most of these inmates have committed many offences. Prisons have different sizes; vary by purpose and inmate features. There are different types of prisons such as, intake facilities. These facilities are for inmates receiving orientation, medical treatment and psychological assessment. Community facilities are usually for the inmates that are not violent. These facilities usually have work firms, transitional living services and less security. The minimum-security prisons usually serve inmates with a small sentence. The housing is usually of a dormitory manner. The medium security prisons are usually for the dangerous prisoners with a lot of criminal history. The maximum-security prisons are for those prisoners that pose a great threat to the state. The multi use prisons are employed by states with fewer prisoners. It is a prison where different types of inmates are held. Finally, the specialty prisons are for prisoners with exceptional needs. These inmates have a mental illness, physical disabilities and HIV/AIDS (Roberts, 2003).

The correctional systems face challenges such as overcrowding. This problem is solved by building new prisons, expanding the community corrections and regulating the prisoner’s intake and release by a prison facility. The Prisons Overcrowding Emergency Powers Act is implemented to reduce the terms of the prisoners serving the ninety-day sentence. It also enables the governor to speed up the parole releases. This reduces overcrowding in prisons. Other prisons employ the strict no-growth command. It minimizes the number of prisoners. This is done by replacing an outgoing prisoner with an incoming one. The front door solution to the overcrowding issue is also employed. It entails shock probation, house arrest and pretrial diversion. Back door solutions like the raising of good time rewards and parole is practiced to reduce prison overcrowding today.

References

Hanser, R. D. (2010). Community corrections. Los Angeles: Sage.

Reichel, P. L. (2008). Comparative criminal justice systems: A topical approach. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Roberts, A. R. (2003). Critical issues in crime and justice. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.