NCJ Number
228917
Date Published
November 2009
Length
88 pages
Annotation
This guide describes key jail population management strategies that address holding offenders accountable while making judicious use of detention resources; and it makes the case for targeting high-risk offenders for the most intensive correctional management, making available a full continuum of jail alternatives, relying on evidence-based sanctions and quality treatment, and having transition and step-down options for jail release.
Abstract
In order to illustrate the jail planning process, this guide uses a sample county throughout to provide examples of data collected and analyzed. The sample county is an actual midsized jurisdiction located near a larger urban population center. An introductory section provides an overview of today's jail, the upward trend in jail and prison populations, the consequences of jail crowding, and planning prior to a jail crisis; and it argues for a results-based paradigm for jail planning. Chapter 1, "Getting Started," first challenges common faulty arguments for jail expansion based on inadequate analysis and/or weak premises. It then proposes a systems approach based on the collection of jail "snapshot" data, case-processing analysis, jail and county population trends, and system assessment. The collected data will guide the selection of a jail forecast, which is a statistical model of the upper and lower limits of expected demand at a point set years into the future. Guidance is then provided on the selection and responsibilities of a planning team. Chapter 2, "System Assessment: Jail Population Management Strategies" outlines key population management strategies. Each strategy includes examples of the related data this guide identifies for collection, providing examples of the relationship between the strategy and jail management. The remaining five chapters address the jail "snapshot," a case-processing study, an overview of jail capacity planning, the jail capacity forecast (a county example), and planning for one empty bed. 26 exhibits and appended supplementary information and samples