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1
CHAPTER 14
Institutional Programs
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
2. Describe the ways that security acts as a constraint on correctional programs offered in
institutional settings.
4. Discuss the importance of the classification process and how “objective classification”
works.
6. Analyze recent developments in the field of correctional rehabilitation.
8. Explain the current pressures facing correctional programming policies.
LESSON PLAN
Correlated to PowerPoints
I. Managing Time
Learning Objective 1: Describe how correctional programs help address the challenge of
managing time in the correctional setting.
A. The median time served in U.S. prisons is almost 24 months.
B. Institutional programs mitigate the oppressiveness of time, and they keep prison time
from becoming dead time. Idle time can be dangerous.
1. Programs range from group therapy to chair-making factories.
3. Other programs use resident labor.
C. Prison programs refers to any form of structured activity that takes incarcerated
individuals out of their cells so they can do something—therapy, work, recreation, and so
on. There are five types of programs.
1. Rehabilitative programs attempt to improve skills or education; others use
3. Medical services provide medical treatment.
5. Other programs involve the maintenance of the facility.
6. Recreational programs are designed to keep residents physically fit.
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Instructor’s Manual
Class Discussion/Activity
Debate and discuss the types of prison-based programs allowed within correctional facilities.
Break the class into groups having one concept per group. Each group will list out pros and cons
to discuss in class.
What If Scenario
What if we did away with prison recreational programming?
D. Constraints of Security
Learning Objective 2: Describe the ways that security acts as a constraint on
correctional programs offered in institutional settings.
2. Security requires tool counts, searches, and detailed accounting of materials.
4. Security requirements make maintenance and industrial programs inefficient.
E. The Principle of Least Eligibility
Learning Objective 3: Explain the meaning of the “principle of least eligibility” and
illustrate its importance.
1. People in prison, having been convicted of wrongful behavior, should be the
2. This would justify, for example, the elimination of Pell Grants for education for
incarcerated individuals.
a. Administrators find it difficult to justify the practice of offering better
Class Discussion/Activity
Ask students to discuss and debate the use of federal monies for Pell Grants to prison residents
who are college students. Debate this issue in class.
II. Classification
Learning Objective 4: Discuss the importance of the classification process and how “objective
classification” works.
A. The Classification Process
1. Classification is a process by which people new to prison are assigned to types
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2. New prison-bound individuals pass through a reception and orientation center
3. At institutions where rehabilitation is taken seriously, batteries of tests,
4. In practice, classification decisions are often based on stereotypes made on the
basis of the institutions needs rather than those of the individual. Incarcerated
individuals often contribute to stereotyping by behaving in certain ways with
staff.
B. Objective Classification Systems
1. As prison space becomes scarcer and more valuable, administrators feel
3. Predictive models are designed to distinguish residents with respect to risk of
escape, potential misconduct in the institution, and future criminal behavior.
4. Objective systems are more efficient and cheaper because line staff can be
trained to administer and score the instrument without help from clinicians and
senior administrators.
Media Tool
Visit https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/designations.jsp
o Federal Bureau of Prisons classification and designation of individuals
o Discuss this site in class. Ask students if they feel that the FBI’s designations and
classifications are in keeping with the Constitution. Why or why not?
What If Scenario
What if we had no classification system within the jail or prison system and allowed all
incarcerated individuals to be housed in the same area? What effects would this have on the
security of the prison?
See Assignments 4 and 5
III. Rehabilitative Programs
Learning Objective 5: Describe the major kinds of institutional programs that are offered in
correctional institutions.
A. Rehabilitative programs aim at reforming individuals’ behavior.
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b. The psychological approach is problematic in prison, and most experts doubt
the ability of psychotherapy to treat underlying emotional or psychological
problems that led to criminality for those individuals.
c. Psychotherapeutic Approaches
i. Psychotherapy is the generic term used to refer to all forms of “treatment
of the mind” and has narrow prospects of success with motivated,
voluntary, free patients.
ii. In recent years, there has been a decrease in the number of programs
designed to address individuals’ emotional health. Most counseling
received tends to focus on individuals’ issues adjusting to prison life or in
dealing with family crises that occur during incarceration.
d. Group Treatment Approaches
i. Examples include reality therapy, confrontation therapy, transactional
analysis, and cognitive skill building.
• Reality therapy emphasizes personal responsibility for actions and
C. Behavior Therapy
a. A form of treatment that induces new behaviors through reinforcements
(rewards and punishments), role modeling, and other active forms of teaching.
D. Social Therapy
a. A form of treatment that attempts to create an institutional environment that
supports prosocial attitudes and behaviors. It creates a therapeutic community.
Media Tool
Visit http://www.diamondsintheruff.com/pawsitive-dog-prison-training-program
o Prison Dog Programs
o Have students discuss this program type in class. Are prisoners as dog trainers a good
idea? What benefits are there, if any, for the prisoners? The dogs? Society?
E. Educational and Vocational Programs
a. One of the oldest ideas in prison programming is to teach incarcerated
individuals a skill that can help them get a job on release.
Chapter 14: Institutional Programs
5
b. Educational Programs: Academic courses are the most popular programs in the
correctional system, but individuals’ ability to learn is hampered by a lack of
basic reading and computational skills.
i. Nearly two-thirds of incarcerated individuals did not graduate from high
school. Two-fifths do not have even a general equivalency diploma
(GED).
ii. Educational programs are very popular and sometimes have waiting
lists.
c. Vocational Programs
i. Programming that attempts to teach offenders cognitive and vocational
job skills designed to help individuals find employment upon release.
F. Substance Abuse Programs
a. The link between crime and substance abuse is strong.
b. Studies of offending individuals at the time of arrest estimate that about half
test positive for drugs.
G. Sex Offender Programs
a. Many officials believe that individuals committing sex offenses represent the
most difficult group for correctional treatment.
Instructor’s Manual
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© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or
in part.
iii. Pervasive anger or hostility
iv. Emotional management difficulties
v. Self-regulation difficulties or impulsivity
vi. Antisocial orientation
vii. Pro-offending attitudes
viii. Intimacy deficits and conflicts
H. Religious Programs
a. Incarcerated individuals become involved in religious programs to ease the
burden of prison time.
b. A key issue is whether religious participation helps offending individuals stay
out of trouble after release; evidence on this is spotty.
Class Discussion/Activity
As a class, create a list of “free services” that individuals should receive while in prison. There
are some that most will agree on, and others will spark debate.
Class Discussion/Activity
Set up an in-class debate format that will address the question: Should incarcerated individuals
be forced to participate in programs?
See Assignments 1 and 3
I. The Rediscovery of Correctional Rehabilitation
Learning Objective 6: Analyze recent developments in the field of correctional
rehabilitation.
a. After Robert Martinson’s 1974 study showed that prison rehabilitation
programs were ineffective, prison treatment programs began to decline.
b. Scholars argue that the time has come for a reformulation of the ethics of
correctional rehabilitation: from “nothing works” to “what works, for whom, and
why.”
J. Prison Medical Services
a. Incarcerated individuals have a well-established right to medical treatment
while incarcerated (Estelle v. Gamble 1976).
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Chapter 14: Institutional Programs
b. This is potentially a very expensive right because individuals bring significant
health problems to the prison, stemming from the high-risk behavior many
engaged in prior to incarceration.
What If Scenario
What if an incarcerated individual was a physician on the outside before landing himself in
prison? Should he be allowed to work in the medical unit on the inside? Should he be used as a
physician?
IV. Prison Industry
Learning Objective 7: Describe the main types of correctional industries and explain how each
1. Four approaches are used to provide for prison industry that occupies
individuals’ time while serving the financial interests of forces outside the wall.
B. The Contract Labor, Piece Price, and Lease Systems
2. A contract labor system existed in the early days; an individual’s labor was sold
to private employers who provided the machinery and raw materials for the work
they would do.
C. The Public Account System
1. The public account system is a labor system under which a prison buys
2. When contract labor was outlawed, Oklahoma led the way in instituting this
system. Instead of selling labor to private entrepreneurs, the prison began to make
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D. The State-Use System
E. The Public Works and Ways System
1. A version of the state-use system called the public works and ways system uses
1. Until very recently, the trend has been away from free-market use of prison
labor and toward state monopolies.
2. The past decade has seen a renewed interest in channeling prison labor into
3. With the rise of the labor movement, state legislatures passed laws restricting
the sale of goods made by incarcerated individuals so as not to compete with free
workers.
Media Tool
Visit https://www.bop.gov/inmates/
o Federal Prison Programs
o Discuss this in class. How are people serving time in federal prisons different from those
serving time in state prisons or local jails? How is the experience different? How are the
prisons themselves different?
What If Scenario
What if an incarcerated person refuses to go to work on a detail or in a programming capacity?
What can/should the administration do about it?
V. Prison Maintenance Programs
A. The typical prison must provide every major service that is available in a community
and more.
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VI. Recreational Programs
A. When incarcerated individuals are not working, in treatment, or in their cells, they are
probably engaging in some form of recreation.
a. Recreational programs are integral to prison social life; incarcerated individuals
vary physically and intellectually and variety in programs enables them to form
positive social contacts who share their interests and abilities.
B. Recreation programs also present security risks.
C. Politicians have pressed to shut down recreational programs, especially weight lifting,
but administrators point out that incarcerated individuals in these programs are often
the best behaved and argue that trying to run a prison without such activities will cause
unrest.
Class Discussion/Activity
Have students write about what is meant by “effectiveness” when talking about prison programs?
From whose viewpoint should we assess a program? What criteria would you use to measure
success in prison programming? Identify two different types of programs offered in prison and
provide indicators of success.
See Assignment 2
VII. Prison Programming Reconsidered
Learning Objective 8: Explain the current pressures facing correctional programming policies.
A. There is not a very deep evidence base for prison programs. More research is needed.
It is hard because of some of the challenges posed by studying correctional populations.
LECTURE NOTES
This chapter concentrates on institutional programming. Often, when people think about prison
programs, they think about rehabilitation, specifically in terms of educational and/or mental
health programs. In reality, prison programming is quite varied, as this chapter illustrates.
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© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or
in part.
This chapter introduces the “principle of least eligibility.” It is a good idea to review this
doctrine with the class. This topic can stimulate a lot of discussion. Ask students if they agree
with the principle. It might be a good idea to bring in research from public opinion polls on the
use of prison programs, as there have been some recent efforts to eliminate or reduce activities
available to incarcerated individuals. Discuss the societal consequences of eliminating prison
programming. Remind them that most incarcerated individuals are eventually released. It may
also be helpful to list some of the activities that are available for incarcerated individuals and
may vary from another in terms of what is available for the incarcerated individuals and of the
differences in quality and variety of programming for women and men.
A notable section of the chapter addresses prison industry. A common misconception is that
prison labor is a new issue. Americans in prison have always worked, and that work has played
an important role in penal ideology as well as in critical discussions among the general public.
release. Students should be made aware of these consequences of conviction, such as restrictions
on voting, employment, financial aid, and more. Ask students if they think such restrictions are
Chapter 14: Institutional Programs
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© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or
in part.
fair and in what contexts. As you complete this chapter, ask students if there are other types of
programming not listed in the text that ought to be in prisons.
KEY TERMS
Prison program
Any formal, structured activity that takes individuals out of their cells and sets them to
instrumental tasks.
Principle of least eligibility
The doctrine that incarcerated individuals ought to receive no goods or services in excess of
those available to people who have lived within the law.
Classification
A process by which incarcerated individuals are assigned to types of custody and treatment.
Psychotherapy
In generic terms, all forms of “treatment of the mind”; in the prison setting, this treatment is
coercive in nature.
Psychotropic medications
Drug treatments designed to lessen the severity of symptoms of psychological illness.
accompany criminal behavior.
Behavior therapy
Treatment that induces new behaviors through reinforcements (rewards and punishments), role
modeling, and other active forms of teaching.
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© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or
in part.
Civil disabilities
Legal restrictions that prevent released individuals convicted on felony charges from voting and
holding elective office, engaging in certain professions and occupations, and associating with
known offending individuals.
Criminogenic needs
Public account system
A labor system under which a prison bought machinery and raw materials with which
incarcerated individuals manufactured a salable product.
State-use system
A labor system under which goods produced by prison industries are purchased by state
Chapter 14: Institutional Programs
ASSIGNMENTS
1. Provide students with the National Institute of Corrections report titled, “Transition and
2. Have the class conduct research on your state’s prison industries. What types of labor are
the incarcerated individuals involved in? Are the students surprised by any of their
findings? Have the class discuss whether they think these individuals are compensated in
3. Send students to NPR.org to read the article “Prison Gardens Help Inmates Grow Their
Own Food—And Skills” (Available:
4. Ask students to research classification of incarcerated individuals within their local jail
5. Have students write about what distinguishes an “objective classification system” from
traditional approaches to incarcerated individual classification. Have them describe the
various methods for classifying incarcerated individuals and identify the characteristics
Instructor’s Manual
ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Although the answers provided below will vary from student to student, the responses should
include at a minimum a discussion of the following key points.
1. How strictly should the principle of least eligibility be applied? Support your viewpoint.
2. Are some rehabilitative programs more effective or valuable than others? Why or why not?
3. What factors limit the possibility of running prison industries as profit-making ventures?
What could be done to improve the profitability of prison industries?
4. Should people in prison be forced to participate in programs? As a correctional officer, what
would you do if someone on your cell range did not want to leave his or her cell?
5. Is a programless prison a possibility?
