The American Correctional Association ( ACA ; called the National Prison Association before 1954) is a private, non-profit, non-governmental and industry accreditation trade association correction, associations like the oldest and largest in the world. The organization was founded in 1870 and has a significant place in the history of prison reform in the US.
ACA accredits more than 900 prisons, jails, community residential centers (shelter houses) and various other correction facilities in the US and internationally, using independently published standard guidelines. About 80 percent of all US corrections and correction departments are active participants. It also includes programs and facilities operated by the Federal Prisons Bureau and the private sector.
Shane Bauer of Mother Jones writes that ACA serves as "the closest thing [United States] to the national regulatory agency for prisons" in addition to being an American fostering industry trade association.
Video American Correctional Association
History
The ACA was established under the name National Prison Association . The encouraging creative force was Enoch Cobb Wines, a minister and reformer who organized the 1870 congress in Cleveland, hoping to introduce the principles of the progressive New York Prison Association to the national stage. Former US president Rutherford B. Hayes served as the organization's first president in 1883. Hayes "did not miss the opportunity to speak with a well-informed sincerity about more effective and more humane ways of dealing with offenders". He remained president until his death ten years later.
Roeliff Brinkerhoff, an Ohio publisher, a political figure and Hayes's frequent ally, replaced Hayes as associate president. Over the next twenty years, Brinkerhoff used the NPA as a platform to pursue basic social reforms such as the separation of state and federal prison systems, and the idea of ​​parole, then a relatively new concept. With Brinkerhoff's influence, the state of Ohio passed a state parole law in 1885, the first state.
The name of the organization was officially changed in 1954 to more accurately reflect the philosophy and scope of the organization.
The ACA began exploring the feasibility of its member accreditation in the 1960s, funded in part by a substantial 1969 grant from the Ford Foundation. In May 1974 the ACA created the "Accreditation Commission for Corrections" in a meeting chaired by Walter Dunbar, a New York corrective figure known for his spokesman role in the Attica Prison riots. (The ACA retained the annual achievement award in his honor.) In 1979, the Vienna Correctional Center, operated by the Illinois Correction Department, became the first accredited adult social corrector.
In 2011 the ACA started branching, and he audited the first detention facility outside the US or Canada. In January 2012, four Mexican facilities were accredited by the ACA, using their Core International Standards manual.
According to their website, ACA has more than 5,000 members.
Conference
The ACA hosts bi-annual conferences in cities across the country. The first conference was the "ACA Winter Conference" with the year included in the title before the ACA. It holds its second annual conference, the Congress of Correction, during the summer. Leading speakers at the ACA conference have included General Richard Myers, Congressman Danny Davis, presidential campaign director Donna Brazile, presidential candidate and commentator Pat Buchanan, CIA secret agent Valerie Plame and her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, TV host Laurie Dhue, political analyst Charlie Cook, and Rear Admiral Boris Lushniak.
Maps American Correctional Association
Executive
- Executive Director: James A. Gondles Jr.
- Deputy Executive Director: Jeffery Washington
- President: Lannette C. Linthicum
- Vice President: Michael Wade
- Treasurer: Gary C Mohr
- The governor's board of representatives to the executive committee: Burl Cain and William E. Peck
Previous President
- Joseph F. Scott (1900-?) - After serving as an Elmira state prison warden, Scott became a New York state prison supervisor. In 1900, Scott was elected chairman of the National Prison Association of A.C.A. predecessor.
- Harold W. Clarke (2008-2010) - Clarke directs the correction in Nebraska, Washington State, Massachusetts and is currently a Correction Director for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
- Daron Hall (2011-2013) - Sheriff Davidson County, Tennessee, Hall previously managed the Brisbane, Australia, prison for Correction Corporation of America
- Christopher B. Epps (2013-2014) - Known for the improvement of the Mississippi State Penitentiary, a reduction in the use of solitary confinement, and earlier early release of non-violently released perpetrators , Epps has served as Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections for over a decade and under three governors. In November 2014 he was charged on eight counts of federal money laundering and took $ 1.47 million of bribes and bribes from prison contractors and vendors; he resigned as A.C.A. president and Mississippi Commissioner of Corrections, plead guilty, and alter state evidence. On May 25, 2017, Judge Henry Travillion Wingate gave him a federal prison term of 235 months (19.6 years). Wingate, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1985 said, "This is the biggest corruption operation I have certainly seen, and I have seen many things." In July 2017 Epps served his sentence at the Federal Penitentiary, Seagoville in Seagoville, Texas.
- Mary L. Livers (2014-2015) Former Deputy Secretary (head of agency) Office Louisiana Juvenile Justice. Previous Deputy Secretary for Operations Maryland Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
Controversy
Accreditation rating
In 1982, a 72-year-old senior judge from the United States Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, Judge David L. Bazelon, resigned from the ACA government panel with a 21-page critique statement. Bazelon has three years left for his five-year term. He described the lack of transparency and accountability, his clear willingness to bend for political influence, and a double role as a trade and accreditation group. Bazelon pointed out a clear conflict of interest, writing, "How does a commission in good conscience represent itself as 'independent' and 'unbiased' while financially dependent on the object of its oversight?"
Bazelon also pointed out that the ACA inspection team at the Menard Correctional Center in Illinois, for example, did not even contact US District Court Judge James L. Foreman, who had found very poor medical treatment for violating the constitution, and did not contact Dr. Lambert King, the special president of Justice Foreman, had been appointed in 1980 to oversee mandated upgrades before they filed their approval report.
Then critics have mentioned several other agencies that maintain their ACA accreditation while outsiders find severe violence and/or court-ordered reforms. These include:
- The private Otter Creek Correctional Center in Kentucky, accredited in 2009 despite many allegations of sexual harassment that caused Hawaii to remove his prisoners and the closure of the prisons
- Idaho State Correctional Center, also privately managed, which retains the good value of the ACA along long-established patterns of violence in prison, lack of staff, operator contract deception, and some federal investigations
- The private Walnut Grove Penitentiary in Mississippi, accredited in 2012 when it was a youth facility, the same year the US District Court Judge Carlton W. Reeves described it as "the tank of unconstitutional and inhumane acts"
Executive
On November 5, 2014, Christopher B. Epps resigned from his position as president of the ACA, shortly before the announcement of his indictment of dozens of corruption allegations. Epps has been identified by a federal investigation conducted by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi called Operation Mississippi Hustle. He allegedly took $ 1.47 million in bribes, from 16 companies, for his role in awarding a $ 1 billion personal prison contract. Epps also resigned from his full-time job as a Correction Commissioner for the state of Mississippi on the same day. Epps pleaded guilty to money laundering and fraudulent tax filing. Many traders were indicted, some pleaded guilty, one committed suicide, and eleven more suspects facing criminal bribery allegations. Assistant US Attorney estimates the net benefit of corruption for prison contractors exceeding $ 65 million. Epps personally receives at least a bribe to direct what US Assistant Attorney Darren LaMarca first estimates $ 800 million in contracts between 2006 and 2014. Federal Chief Judge Henry Travillion Wingate has heard of other parties accused of bribing Epps. The indictment of Irb Benjamin for Epps bribery in connection with a drug and alcohol contract awarded his company to the MDOC jail was announced on 22 August 2015. He paid at least $ 862,000 to obtain and maintain ACA accreditation for prisons in many areas. Passing ACA standards is required if they will be awarded a contract to withhold state custody. Benjamin represented Alcorn County as a Democrat in the State House from 1976-80 and the state Senate from 1984-92, and later worked for the Republican Lieutenant Governor. Alcorn County pays Benjamin, president and lobbyist for Mississippi Correctional Management (MCM), $ 114,000 per year even though he lives more than 200 miles away. Lawyers of Alcorn Lawyers' Council said the supervisors were not required to seek an offer before giving Benjamin a contract as a warden as it was a contract for service exempt from the bid legislation. He earns $ 5,000 a month to handle accreditation by the American Correctional Association for Alcorn Regional Prison and another $ 4,500 a month as a prison warden. He formed the MCM in 1996, when the Corrections Department and the state began hiring private contractors to operate smaller prisons and regional prisons. It operated the Grenada County jail for years. Benjamin said the company also has a $ 4,000 or $ 5,000 monthly prison accreditation contract with other countries including Chickasaw, Hancock, Holmes, Marion, Pearl River, Washington and Yazoo. In the past, he also worked as a $ 3,000 monthly prison consultant for DeSoto County. On June 8, 2008, Supervisor Supervisory Board supervisor DeSoto approved a contract that said: "Mr. Benjamin is recommended by Epps Commissioners at the state level." On November 25, 2014, Benjamin that he did not know the Epps recommendation. Benjamin pleaded guilty to federal allegations on October 18, 2016. He faced 10 years in prison, plus a fine of up to a quarter of a million dollars. Federal Chancellor Judge Wingate sentenced him to 70 months in jail, fined the former Democratic representative and senator for $ 100,000 and ordered him to lose $ 260,782. Benjamin, who said he was "depressed," estimated he paid Epps between $ 180,000 and $ 225,000 in bribes for support for regional prisons. His request includes bribes for drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs run by his company. LaMarca told Wingate, "only a matter of time" until another person who was told Benjamin was charged.
James A. Gondles, Jr. became Executive Director of the ACA in 1990 after serving as sheriff from Arlington, Virginia. The court records show the long history of the lawsuit and the false accusations of treating his staff. He was accused of sexual harassment, "abuse of power," socializing and having sex with women's representatives, suppressing a top aide and targeting Arlington County employees who supported his opponent during the 1987 campaign for the Sheriff. In 1988 when he served as Sheriff of Arlington County, The Citizens for Law and Constitution alleged that Gondles had committed "harassment and power" as a sheriff, such as oppressing servants and bragging about having sex with women's representatives. Also in 1988 Gondles completed a sexual harassment suit, brought by a female representative, with a $ 25,000 payment and a public apology.
See also
- Detention in the United States
References
External links
- American Correctional Association
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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