Corrections: An Overview
Government agencies should exhibit a professional conduct through self-evaluation and adhering to ethical moral in offering services. Agencies need to work toward achieving common goals and maintaining job performance. Through self-evaluation, agencies should follow the standards of conduct. Corrections is a challenging work and agencies face challenges associated with prisons populations, limited resources, high turnover rates and more (Sondervan, 2011). Other important point is that professional development is achieved through training which ensures that agencies gains knowledge and skills based on ethical behaviors, leader development, decision making, and law and polices. According to my opinion, professionalism is an area which requires training. Note that personal professionalism is an area which is influenced by commitment and hard work. Thus, training is a way of building a professional organization and a positive character. Training through program and experiential activities will provide agencies with proper instruction , career path, personal growth and gain knowledge related with incident report, executive orders, judicial and more (Sondervan, 2011). An example of professionalism in corrections is ethical behaviors. This is achieved through training where officers will be trained on how to address situations and make ethical decisions. Note that officers should adhere to moral codes for them to act with integrity, fairness, honest and truth (Sondervan, 2011).
In the past, guilty people faced harsh punishment until the Victorian period when prison reforms were developed. The major types of punishment during the ancient times were hanging and transportation. Since 1717, criminals were being transported to America where they were locked in a prison hulks. Other method was hanging where criminals were hanged. Criminals were given a chance to confess there faults and after that they were put in drawn cart and it was pulled (Weiss, 1999). According to my opinion, these methods are not effective to deter crime today. This is because; in 19th century Britain for example encountered extraordinary changes such as population increase, new industries, high poverty and others. Crime rate was high and this indicates that punishment and transportation were not effective methods. Thus, in modern world, prisons and prison programmes are the best punishment system as they serve an important role in reforming offenders and shaping them to become productive citizens (Weiss, 1999).
References
Sondervan W. (2011). PROFESSIONALISM IN CORERCTIONS. Retrieved from:
http://highered.mheducation.com/olc2/dl/947175/sch26474_ch17_567_579.pdf
Weiss, R. P. (1999). Social history of crime, policing and punishment. Aldershot: Ashgate.
