Prison Types in the United States
Types of Prisons
Introduction to Prison Types
In the United States and Canada, prisons are divided into tiers or units that house different types of offenders. Prison administrators differentiate offenders according to the degree of risk they pose to other inmates and to prison personnel. Criteria for assigning inmates to different custody levels include the person’s current conviction offense, prior record, history of violence, past institutional behavior, and sentence length. In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Prisons uses a multilevel scale to determine an inmate’s custody level. Many state prisons use similar classification schemes. Canadian prisons also utilize a custody rating scale to place inmates in the properly rated prison.
Conventional custody levels include minimum-security, medium-security, and maximum-security, with each higher custody level involving closer supervision, more elaborate security, and more intensive inmate control. About 20 percent of all correctional institutions in the United States are multilevel, including minimum-, medium-, and maximum-security levels of custody within the same facility. Some multilevel facilities also include super-maximum security areas.
Some prisons in Canada and the United States are designed exclusively for women. Special facilities also exist to house juvenile wrongdoers. Other institutions are specifically equipped to provide medical services or psychological counseling and therapy to offenders with physical or mental ailments.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Prison Types in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia