Security features in place in custodial care

Throughout this assignment I will be describing the existing security features in place in custodial care and explaining why we need them.There are three different types of security in custodial care, these are: Physical, Dynamic and procedural.

Physical: these are the physical restrictions that stop people from escaping or going where they shouldn’t, these objects include locks, bars, fences, gates, patrolling officers and security checkpoints. These restrictions reduce contraband flow, enforce discipline and prevent escape, if we didn’t have these restrictions then custodial care would be futile with inmates having the ability to leave as they choose. However, if they decided not to leave then the prison would become corrupt as contraband could flow easily throughout the prison. Finally, prison violence would increase as without bars and locks there would be nothing to stop prisoners from attacking each other.Dynamic: this is the role of the prison officers, taking care of normal daily activities, movement of individuals, domestic visits, constructive regimes and intelligence systems.

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It is important to have prison officers that have a good relationship with the prisoners as it makes it easier to communicate and gain the respects of the inmates. Having this relationship will reduce violence and promote good behavior.

On the other hand, it is also the officers that are responsible for controlling situations and have a few pieces of equipment on them such as batons, pepper sprays and hand cuffs to detain inmates. If we didn’t have any of the above, then the morale of inmates would be lower and could result in more violence towards other inmates or officers.Procedural: these procedural security features include identifying possible security risks, dealing with physical risks and isolating them, ensuring all documentation is present and completed and sorting the inmates into appropriate security levels based on their risk. These levels of security include the following; high security, Category B, Category C, open prisons, female establishment, young offenders. To explain, in sequential order, the higher the security the less free time that the prisoners have and the fewer number of privileges. In contrast, the lower the security the more free time and privileges available to them. In addition, some inmates are able to have tv’s in their rooms, however if they break the prison rules then privileges like this can be removed, one such example of this is from the 1979 film escape from Alcatraz where a inmate called Doc has his painting privileges revoked after breaking the rules which leads him to cut off his finger.

Similar situations happen in the real world when privileges are revoked. To conclude, if we didn’t have these procedures in place then high risk inmates would be housed with low risk inmates which could call implications.One of the biggest problems in prisons today is contraband and to reduce that prison searches are key to removing contraband before it enters the system.The first type of search is a pat down search, when doing a pat down search, the objective is to find hidden contraband on someone’s person, but you must be respectful and considerate of people’s body and personal items and for this reason a pat down search must be done by an officer of the same gender. The search consists of the prisoner facing away from the officer and lifting their arms perpendicular their body so that the officer can run their hands over the prisoner’s arms, back and down the legs. The guard will wear protective gloves while doing this so that they don’t get stabbed by anything. The officers are mainly looking for offensive weapons and drugs.

If anything is seen, then the guard will have to take it and write a report. However, if it is something small like a stolen apple then the officers will just take it and let the prisoner go.The next type of search is the electronic wand which will pick up on metals and will alert the officer if it identifies anything. However, the wand can give false reading or not pick up certain metals if the wand cannot detect the metal or the inmate has had metal put in for operations in the past. On the other hand, visitors must walk through an electronic walk through to ensure they don’t bring any metal or offensive weapons into the prisons. If the do not consent to any searches, then they are not allowed to enter the prison, the same applies with staff as the staff can be corrupted to carry in drugs for high profile inmates.The third and final search is a cell search