NCJ Number
174042
Date Published
1996
Length
138 pages
Annotation
Emergency preparedness is an important topic for State and local correctional facilities because large-scale inmate violence or a natural disaster can threaten the lives of both institutional staff and inmates.
Abstract
Over the past several years, the National Institute of Corrections has provided technical assistance to State and local agencies and institutions to help evaluate their emergency preparedness. To extend this assistance to more agencies, the National Institute of Corrections sponsored a project to develop self-audit materials to guide agencies and institutions in rigorously examining their own emergency preparedness. Other project goals were to create case studies of emergency preparation, policy, and response from actual emergency situations; to test components of the self-audit materials to ensure practicality, effectiveness, general adaptability, and general acceptance; and to validate final materials prior to publication by comparing results at demonstration sites in several State correctional departments with results obtained by two or more experienced emergency preparedness consultants analyzing those same demonstration sites. Twenty State correctional departments were asked to supply sample institutional emergency plans, departmental emergency policies and plans, and reports of recent major crises and emergencies. This information was used to develop self-audit materials that were trial tested in five States (Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri). Reactions from field trials were then used to modify the materials, and the revised materials were validation tested in three States (Alaska, Nebraska, and Texas). The final self-audit checklists are included, along with case studies of recent prison and jail crises around the United States and lessons learned and a model institutional emergency plan organization. 115 references