Criminal Justice Process for a Felony Criminal Charge, Research Paper Example

Felony charges are considered to be capital charges and often the offenders are condemned to serve life-terms in federal prisons. Federal prisons have for decades been managed by the federal government. This has mainly been attributed to the fact that security issues are a matter of public interest and should therefore not be entrusted into private hands. Considerably, the government has had remarkable experience in managing the correctional facilities with competence. As a public sector correctional facility manager, I support the fact that prisons should remain in the public hands for several reasons.  The reasons are logically presented in the ensuing section. Firstly, one of the main functions of various governments across the globe is to ensure that there is absolute security to its citizenry. Therefore, issues regarding security are often treated with sensitivity and kept away from the private citizen. The government through the police ensures that offenders are brought to book, while further ensuring that the offenders are locked away in safe custody.

In addition, the government has the relevant machinery to manage the dynamic demands of the prison facilities. As a public sector correctional facility manager, I concur with Ruddock (1994) when he alleges that the government is the only body which trains prison wardens who are then deployed to various correctional facilities in the United States. The government offers training to various officers who are then deployed to various prisons as prison wardens. Therefore, keeping the prisons in public hands is prudent as it would ensure the continued supply of prison staff that will help and facilitate the management of prison.

The experience elucidated by the government-run prisons follow a well established and proven procedure. This enables the person staff to manage the public sector well. The public sector prison system has elaborate controls which are effective in ensuring that the federal prisons are well managed (Parry, 1990).

Consequently, handing over the management of prisons to the private sector will expose the prison sector to corruption and personalized services being offered t o prisoners. This unequal treatment of prisoners will thus lead to social disparities in the prisons. Flynn and Hurd (1998) reveal that the private sector cannot manage the influx of prisoners. The private sector facilities are often overstretched beyond their capacity in case the number of prisoners rises beyond the expected threshold. However, this is not the case with government managed prisons. The government has adequate capacity to properly manage prisons. Furthermore, the federal government can authorize the construction of extra prisons in order to accommodate the high number of prisoners.

As we know, most private ventures are established with the profit –making notion in mind. Therefore, having private prisons will mean commercializing the prison sector. Griffith (1998) argues that issue concerning security and more so the correction of offenders should not be privatized as these issues require the impartial ‘eye’ of the government. As a result of this, more prisoners are bound to be released without learning the lesson that took them to the prisons in the first place. The community or society at large will thus suffer from the effects of insecurity as such released prisoners are bound to commit crime again. Griffith (1998) suggests that the chances of these released prisoners to commit a crime are almost 45 percent.

The public sector of prison management has a well established relationship with the justice system in the United States (Parry, 1990). This cordial relationship will be handy in ensuring that prisoners adjust fast to government prison facilities. Here, they know and understand that they are being handled by staff whom they know and can identify with therefore creating a relationship early in their stay at the correctional facility which will enhance their behavioral change.

According to Lilly and Knepper (1992), private prisons have been described as hell-holes where he prisoners are turned from bad to worse before being thrown back t the harsh society with little or no chance for betterment. Some of the prisoners who leave private prison after serving their terms usually lack employment or even legitimate income sources. The federal prisons usually have open opportunities for the training the prisoners in carious creative disciplines.

Furthermore, the public sector prisons offer equal treatment to the convicted prisoners within their control. It has often been presented by Flynn and Hurd (1998) that the private sector prisons do treat the prisoners in concealed bias. This is compounded by the fact that the staffs working at the private correctional facility are more vulnerable to receive kickbacks as well as cash backs which will facilitate a certain privilege to the prisoners.

On the other hand, the emergence of private prisons will ultimately lead to a reduction in the prosecution backlog. This is because more and more prisoners will have their cases listened to or effectively transferred to another court o justice. Therefore, the management of prison s should be left in the experienced hands of the government since they ensure unbiased service to all the prisoners and convicted offenders. The vast majority of researchers and authors support the fact that public management of prisons should be the preserve of the government.

Conversely, the correctional prison system should be turned over to the private correctional industry. There have been several contentions regarding the turning over of prison facilities to the private hands. Basically, the government uses a large portion of the tax payers’ money to run and manage the prison sector. According to Lilly and Knepper (1992) most of the resources allocated to run prisons in the United State are misappropriated by the prison department staff. Indeed, this leads to a waste of government or public resources.

Moreover, turning the prison or correctional facilities to the private correctional industry will lead to the reduction of overcrowding in the federal prisons. For instance, in the prison of Georgia, overcrowding has been identified as the major problem facing the prison in general. Lilly and Knepper (1992) also insinuates that the quality of life in the prisons will generally be enhanced. This will be made possible since the private correctional system will be placed under strict controls, thus ensuring that high standards of prison management are maintained.  Among the most pertinent problems is that the correctional facilities are poorly management. Death in the prison facilities are a common occurrence.

Privatization of prisons will thus give the correctional facilities a human phase. Reforms can easily take place in the private prisons as opposed to publicly managed prisons. For instance, if the prison authorities are seeking an amendment to the prison operations, they would usually have to follow a long bureaucracy established in the public management of the correctional facility. On the contrary, changes are swiftly implemented within the private correctional sector. The private correctional facilities usually offer various options relating to the sensitivity of the prisoners in a more succinct manner.

Prisoners equally have the freedom and are also treated with humane and respect. Parry (1990) suggests that private prisons respect the prisoner’s rights and obligations. Furthermore, the prisons under private governance exhibit a lot of maturity as less violence is reported.

While public correctional facilities offer limited chances for the prisoners to express themselves, private prisons facilities this by encouraging individual as well as societal values. Fr instance, prisoners are often encouraged to interact with one another along their gender lines and thus build formidable alliances.

Private prisons also increase the level of accountability. The general public usually forms some assumptions of the kind of service that they expect of the private prisons.  This thus makes the prison authorities in the private sector to strive towards enhancing the quality of care accorded to the prisoners thus improving heir general outlook. The prison staffs working in the private correctional facility knows what is expected of them and also fully understand the kind of output expected from them by the various stakeholders. Accountability is achieved via regular returns that the private correctional facility will file with the government. This will thus ensure that the correctional faculty is governed in a manner that is consistent with the public’s expectations as well as the established government procedures.

The private sector correctional facility is faced with a number of challenges.  Running a fully fledged operational private correctional facility involves a huge amount of monetary expenditure. There is often a limited amount of resource available for the effective running of the facility. This in turn impedes the institution’s ability to achieve its goals as most of the objectives of the private correctional system depend on adequate supply of financial resources. Similarly, the private correctional facilities incur huge expenses in running the facility as well as paying the salaries of its staffs being a private entity; there is need for the venture to establish a breakeven point upon which it must offer its products so as to maintain a   prudent level of liquidity and operational profits.

Perhaps the most imperative challenge facing the public sector correctional facilities is the presence of heavy bureaucracy which is usually time consuming and thus leading to unnecessary delays in conducting matters concerning prisoners. The bureaucracy also affects the efficiency within the prisons. it is evident that the correctional facility for the  public sector faces another eminent challenge regarding the slow pace of reforms in  the prison itself. For instance, according to Ruddock (1994) several requests for minor reforms are pending to be approved and subsequently be approved.

Prior to privatization, there are number of legal barriers that have to be overcome.  The private institutions have to be chartered in order to commence operating as a private correctional facility. The constitution needs to be amended in order to accommodate and support such reforms. Otherwise, in its current state, it would be illegal. Similarly, human right concerns have to be adequately addressed so as to ensure that the private correctional institutions adhere to the established human rights requirements.

Furthermore, certain aspects of civil and criminal facets need to be addressed. For instance, a service level standard will need to be formulated between the private prison authorities and the government authorities. This shall serve to ensure that the private correctional facility operates within the stipulated authority. It will also ensure that the private prison authorities file the expected returns to the government in time.

The private prison staff must be provided with firearms so as to work effectively and avoid escape by the prisoners. Such authority to do this must be granted by the chief constable through the senior police officers following a parliamentary decree. The private prison shall be required to operate strictly as a private prison and not engage in other activities of civil and criminal nature.

Finally, the federal government must facilitate obtaining the operation license for the private prisons facility. The private prison should also comply with the required license for operating the franchise. The service level agreement should also enhance the operability of the private prisons.

References

Flynn, N., & Hurd, D. (1998). Introduction to Prisons and Imprisonment. Edinburgh: Waterside Press.

Griffith, J. A. G. (1998). Public Law. California: Stevens and Sons.

Lilly, J.R., & Knepper, P. (1992). An International Perspective on the Privatization of Corrections”, The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 31(3), 174 – 191.

Parry, R. (1990). Privatization. Michigan: J. Kingsley.

Ruddock, J. (1994). Privatizing prisons: a dangerous diversion. Boston: Labor Party Printing Press.