By R. David Parrish

"We ask an awful lot of our prisons. We ask them to correct the incorrigible, rehabilitate the wretched, deter the determined, restrain the dangerous and punish the wicked. We ask them to take over where other institutions of society have failed and to reinforce norms that have been violated and rejected. We ask them to pursue so many different and often incompatible goals that they seem virtually doomed to fail. Moreover, when we lay upon prisons the utilitarian goals of rehabilitation, deterrence and incapacitation, we ask them to achieve results primary outside of prison, rather than inside." -- Dr. Charles H. Logan

This excerpt from a discussion paper published by the United States Department of Justice expresses a reality that we as the people who do the work of corrections experience on a daily basis. The mission we have is a complex and difficult one. If we are to succeed in accomplishing this mission, we must accept the challenge of making a difference, while insuring the safe, and lawful confinement of those in our charge.

In the essay quoted above, Dr. Logan, a professor of sociology and national expert on corrections, presents what he calls the "confinement model" of imprisonment. He states that under the confinement model, offenders are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment.

Dr. Logan goes on to say, "Under the confinement model, a prison does not have to justify itself as a tool of rehabilitation or crime control or any other instrumental purpose at which an army of critics will forever claim it to be a failure. It proclaims itself to be, first and foremost, an agent of justice, and not necessarily an agent of either individual or social change."

Dr. Logan does not mean to say that prisons ought not to have behavioral change as part of their mission, he simply states that prisons should not be evaluated primarily on that basis -- and that a well run prison provides the opportunity for useful programming.

The interesting thing about what Dr. Logan presents is that his model actually lends itself to the development and utilization of programming that takes place in an environment that is secure, safe, meets the basic needs of prisoners with decency, and attends to all other measures of healthcare, sanitation, nutrition and other aspects of basic living. It is in the context of such a model that realistic programming can be created, developed and implemented.

Unfortunately, all too often, given the priorities and complexity of running a prison, we neglect program development and implementation as part of our ongoing agenda. The confinement model is incomplete without providing constructive activity to eliminate idle time and its negative implications. In this model, however, work, education and training are not considered benefits, but rather opportunities, ideally connected to economy in which the inmate could earn money by producing goods and services of real value. This would allow inmates to be responsible for their families and pay for higher education, entertainment or healthcare beyond the minimal levels provided by the institution.

In order to benefit from the wisdom provided in this approach, it is imperative to apply appropriate performance criteria to the operation of our institutions and include a program development component that can provide constructive activity and result in measurable results. This can be best accomplished if our institutions share a network in which program information, development, planning and implementation are integrated into our activities as an important element of our operation.

The state-of-the-art computer communications infrastructure we now have facilitates such a network. This approach is dependent on the creative thinking of the people working directly with the inmates on a daily basis -- those with the experience of knowing what works and the ideas of what could work. An institutional program committee could provide the workplace for bringing together the ideas from the various areas of the institution for discussion and processing. This committee could also review existing programs, provide reports to the administrator on the status of the program initiatives and gather information from resources such as the Internet to examine best practices and state-of-the-art programming.

We are at an exciting point in time in the evolution of corrections. If we recognize the opportunity and utilize our experience, skills, wisdom and initiative, we can collectively make major contributions to the direction and effectiveness of corrections in the future.

R. David Parrish is associate administrator Riverfront State Prison in Camden.