Like a patchwork quilt, each state has varying sets of standards that jails must follow, with some states having no mandated requirements at all. But there are several efforts in the works to increase the consistency of operations and performance of the nation's jails -- to make that quilt a little more uniform.

Since the 70s, individual states have created their own sets of minimum standards that jails large and small must abide by. State officials are often in charge of inspecting the jails in those states to ensure they are compliant. But by and large, leaders in the field see those standards as the bare minimum and instead would prefer the nation's jails aspire to a higher set of values about jail operations.

"We've seen in the last 30 years tremendous improvement across the board and we'll see better facilities and better training in the future, but it's a long haul," said Rod Miller, a consultant and founder of Community Resource Services, Inc., which has been working on jail standards issues for more than 30 years.

One recent change to the standards landscape is the American Correctional Association's approval of new Adult Local Detention Facility standards that will require jails to specifically measure their compliance and track their performance.

Miller, who was a part of the ACA committee that helped work on and review these new standards, said the nation's best practices for jails are embodied in this latest version of the voluntary standards. In order to be accredited by the ACA, a facility must meet a certain percentage of these standards.

But, for many jails, the cost and staff time commitment involved in preparing for an audit is too high.

Knowing this, some states are working on their own accreditation procedures as a middle step to ACA accreditation, while some facilities create their policies and procedures using the ACA standards as a guide only. There are others that still meet only the minimum standards required of them.

"With 3,200 jails and the turnover they have and the different management and leadership, it's always a work in progress. It moves in fits and starts," said Miller.

Separately, the NIC has addressed jail standards from a different perspective. It has focused on training jail inspectors and developing a training curriculum for those inspectors to improve consistency of jail operations from that angle.

Either way, standards are appearing on the radar screens of state and local jurisdictions more frequently. And, according to many, they should.

Striving for Compliance

In more than 30 states, jails must meet standards that are determined to be constitutionally necessary for a jail to operate. In those states most of the local and county jails do an adequate job of attaining this level of performance based on annual inspections.

These standards range from the square footage that is appropriate for housing an inmate, to the recent inclusion of services for mentally ill inmates. Most state bodies in charge of those standards update them as needed to ensure that local facilities operate at a certain level.

"They certainly make an effort to keep up with case law changes. They attempt to reflect trends in operations, be it practices such as direct supervision or objective classification," said Jim Barbee, Corrections Program Specialist for the Jails Division at the National Institute of Corrections.

In South Carolina, the state's jail standards, which are maintained and approved by the Department of Corrections and the state's Association of Counties, loosely mirror those of ACA in some cases and are simultaneously sensitive to the economic reality of local and county jails.

"This group [the Association of Counties] would ensure we didn't come up with an unfunded mandate and the Department of Corrections would ensure they are realistic and that integrity is maintained," said Blake E. Taylor, Jr., Director of Compliance, Standards and Inspections for the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

Beyond this, Taylor said, South Carolina officials are in the process of creating a state accreditation that rises above the general state standards inspection.

The state's sheriff's association is behind the effort, according to Taylor - a member of the committee pushing state accreditation, and has looked closely at the new ACA standards.

"State accreditation will be voluntary and will have a higher bar, but not as high as ACA," Taylor said. "Hopefully you'll have everyone [in the state jails] trying to work on the state [accreditation] and I hope we'll have a significant group that will do national accreditation."

Meeting state standards and achieving an even higher level of accreditation is something all jail administrators should consider carefully, Taylor said.

"The jail is one of the most volatile functions in local government where things can go wrong and it causes the greatest furor and attention when it does - whether it is an escape or a fire or a hostage situation, or even a lawsuit," he said.

Jails can face weeks of front-page headlines and costly litigation if they do not have in place proper policies and procedures that reflect good operating standards. With all these pitfalls, it only makes sense for a jail to run according to the highest standards.

"Besides being the right thing to do, it's a good reason for people to stay ahead of consent decrees. Why wait and be forced to do things you should be doing anyway? Phase it in and plan it out and put your own style on it, rather than have someone else do it," he said.

While counties in South Carolina all meet the general state standards, the percentage of those reaching for the ACA's national standards is relatively low. And South Carolina is not alone in this.

"Over the years very few jails have taken advantage of voluntary accreditation. There are many factors including cost," Taylor said.

For some sheriffs, who face contentious re-election bids, the idea of shooting for and missing accreditation worries them as it might provide ammunition for opponents, Taylor suggested.

A study published by LSI, Inc. for NIC last year, confirms that there are some gaps in the areas of compliance with mandatory standards as well as accreditation.

According to the results of the study, Issues in Jail Operations 2003: Perspectives from State Jail Inspectors, about half of the respondents to the survey rated at least 76 percent of their states' jails as compliant with standards, while only 55 jails were identified as having accreditation from the ACA.

Some in the field say that a jail's ability to comply with standards or seek a higher level of performance has more to do with who is leading the organization.

"If there is one common element that has as much, if not more, of an effect on whether jails are capable of complying with standards, it is leadership. It takes that commitment, that leading with the heart where you have both the skills as well as the desire to have a safe, well-run constitutional jail," said Barbee.

Barbee said this leadership carries through both an antiquated and overcrowded jail as well as a shiny, new one.

The accreditation manager for jails in Orange County, Fla., Charlene Clouchete, can attest to that as she prepares to pass the Florida state accreditation for jails as well as ACA's new performance-based standards next year.

Taking Aim at Performance

The Orange County, Fla., Department of Corrections is in the thick of preparing for a state audit this summer and is already looking ahead to a three-day ACA audit in 2005.

Charlene Clouchete and her four-man office have a plan mapped out to pass all the accreditation obstacles ahead of them and stay compliant with state jail standards at the same time.

The Orange County jails belong to a consortium with six other counties that provide each other with inspections to ensure that each is on top of the mandatory standards for the state, according to Clouchete.

Aside from the state jails standards, it is Orange County's goal to earn its first accreditation under the Florida Corrections Accreditation Commission.

Clouchete said these standards are a mix of ACA standards and the mandatory state standards with the biggest difference being the requirement for a written directive for all standards - meaning that policy and procedure have to match standards that the jail is working to meet.

One way to keep on top of this is to have both a policy team and an accreditation team to review new items as well as compliance. In Orange County's case, many of the same people, who come from different areas of the jail, serve on both.

Representatives on the policy team, for example, are required to review certain policies each month on the job and then report back to the team for changes or compliance issues. Each person on the team is assigned a set of policies to review based on what aspect of jail operations they are responsible for.

The county is also able to tap into an ongoing email listserv that includes other counties that have passed or are working toward the FCAC accreditation.

Clouchete said that the listserv allows her to email questions about a specific requirement to get feedback from others in the field prior to her facility's audit.

This information coupled with the ongoing policy and procedure review by staff is helpful to ensure a successful accreditation by FCAC as well as one using the new ACA standards.

"With ACA's performance-based standards you have to show you've done it. Policy and procedure is primary, then you have your process indicators," said Clouchete.

She explained that a standard requiring a safe environment for staff and inmates would look at a variety of things: a written policy requiring a safe environment, the presence of an injury report form for when an inmate is hurt, interviews with staff to ensure they know what to do in the event of an injury, a review of documentation to show the policy was reviewed annually and then an analysis of statistics, such as worker's comp claims or inmate illnesses to start a base line for the institution's performance.

Those statistics will become the comparison point for each successive audit and will show improvement or problems in that area.

"With these you are actually measuring and have to keep statistics and do some real evaluation," said Taylor, who has been involved in the development of the new ACA standards.

Barbee of NIC said the new performance-based standards should promote the actual day-to-day performance of the jail to meet the required outcome. 

"It hopefully advances the standards to the next level. It's more than just complying with the standard for the sake of being in compliance. Hopefully it is less about the standards and more about the actual outcome and the relationship between staff and inmates," said Barbee.

Although the new requirements for the ACA audit are a little intimidating, Clouchete and the staff at the Orange County facilities know the importance of making it through.

"It's a benefit for your working conditions, your staff, inmates. It's not just a plaque on the wall. It benefits everybody. It benefits the community," she said.

Improvement in Inspections

In addition to setting a higher bar for jails standards nationally, other improvements are in progress. The NIC is working to bring consistency to the mechanism through which most of the nation's jails actually are measured - the state jail inspection.

Although corrections leaders would like all jails to aspire to the highest possible standards, the fact remains that most still strive to pass their state inspections.

With this in mind, the NIC is training and educating state jail inspectors to look for the same types of standards and performance and bring consistency to jail operations that way.

For the last two years the NIC has worked with the chiefs of 33 state jail inspection agencies to create a training curriculum for jail inspectors that they can bring back to their staff. The idea is to promote a philosophy that supports proper jail standards and principles as part of the inspection process.

"It is NIC's intention to turn [this] finely tuned curriculum along with participant materials and training aids to the respective states to use to train their own people," said Barbee. "Most agencies have very small inspection groups and don't merit, based on the economy of scale, to have a full-blown training for inspectors."

In addition, the NIC offers the chiefs of the jail inspection agencies a regular meeting where they have a chance to interact and problem-solve and then jail inspectors can interact daily about issues through an email discussion group.

By enhancing communication and promoting a higher level of performance, NIC hopes that jails across the country will, on their own, meet a higher standard of operation to promote safer jails for those who work there, those who live there and the community.

"We're humans in a human business, managing human behavior in a confined setting and if you don't deal with that you deal with the consequences of that. That's one of the areas where standards and the philosophy by state jail inspectors can be a real help to local jail administrators and managers," said Barbee.

Resources:

Jim Barbee - NIC 800-995-6429 x. 138

Blake Taylor - S.C. DOC 803-896-8506
 
CRS - http://www.correction.org/COMain/experience.htm#services