Correctional Emergency Management: The Next Level

• NCJ Number: 206774
• Journal: Corrections Today Magazine Volume: 66 Issue: 4 Dated: July 2004 Pages: 60-64
• Author(s): Gene Atherton
• Date Published: July 2004
• Length: 5 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Instructional Material
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article describes a systems approach for ensuring that there is an effective response to emergencies in correctional facilities.

Abstract

Security programs for correctional facilities must recognize that effective emergency management cannot be achieved by part-time efforts of a small group of staff; emergency management must involve the participation of the entire institution. To ensure the total involvement in correctional emergency management at the facility level, there must be a forum to provide the necessary resources and perform the work required to design and coordinate a total institutional response. This group must represent the diversity of the facility and all of the key work areas, such as administrative, administrative support, inmate programs, clinical services, housing, and security. As a permanent task force under the direction of the security administrator, this group develops emergency plans, designs and delivers emergency training and exercises, provides problem solving efforts/resources to special security issues, and designs security systems checks or exercises. This article's section on training outlines an emergency exercise, which is the core of the required training for emergency responses. Features of an emergency response that should be tested in such an exercise include emergency communications, staff/inmate accountability, emergency command center setup and operations, staff callback systems, hostage negotiations operations, evacuations, emergency response team deployment, facility lockdown, mutual aid operations, lockdown operations, and first responders. The article's overview of the systems approach for emergency management focuses on systems that are typically lacking at correctional facilities. These systems are staff and inmate accountability, emergency communication, first responders, staff staging areas/shutting down perimeter access, checklist information format, staff callback systems, and mutual aid relationships.