News

Sign up today to attend this National Institute of Corrections webinar, Understanding Justice-Involved Veterans , being held Thursday, February 11, 2016 from 1:00 – 2:30 PM ET. As a center of learning, innovation and leadership that shapes and advances correctional practice and public policy, the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) devotes a portion of its focus to the critical needs of justice-involved veterans. NIC will be hosting a live webinar that will identify key service-related...

The Serving Time Cafe is operated by Utah Correctional Industries and is located next to the Utah State Prison. The cafe opened on December 7, 2009. The employees are a combination of inmate employees and staff. Many of the female inmates who work in the cafe have earned vocational certificates in culinary arts through Davis Applied Technology College. They are involved in most facets of running the restaurant. Inmates create the menu, order supplies, wash dishes, cook, and serve the food. Working...

This series of articles by Joy Hampton, published in The Norman Transcript, focuses on women in Oklahoma’s prisons, their offenses and their families. Recent articles: Mean laws or mean women? Examining how the state deals with women’s criminal offenses. Bassett tales of redemption . How women are giving back to society with the Friends for Folks dog training program. Somebody's daughter: Every woman serving time is someone's child . About women in prison and their families. Children...

Hallam Centre for Community Justice and Action for Prisoners’ and Offenders’ Families released a report last month, funded by Barrow Cadbury Trust, which examines the services available to mothers and babies in the prison system in England. While the report focuses on the correctional system in Great Britain, it does have relevance for prisons in the United States that either already have Mother and Baby Units or are considering adding them. In the British system women who are pregnant...

In a recent announcement by the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) , Veronica Ballard Cunningham, a 35-year veteran of pretrial, probation and parole systems in Louisiana, Texas and Illinois, has been appointed as the new Executive Director for APPA. She officially takes the helm on January 4, 2016. Ms. Cunningham has a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice from Louisiana State University. She is currently the Director for New Orleans Pretrial Services, a demonstration project through...

From The Sentencing Project this December 2015 fact sheet, Incarcerated Women and Girls , provides “data on the increase in the number of women and girls in the justice system over time and highlights important differences between men and women in prison as well as boys and girls in the juvenile justice system.” Highlights from the report: Between 1980 and 2014, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700%, rising from a total of 26,378 in 1980 to 215,332 in 2014. Though...

Recently added to the National Institute of Corrections website, you will find a new page for Sex Offenders resources. This collection of resources is intended to provide a broad overview of current research and trends in the management and treatment of sex offenders. The page highlights resources on sex offenders specific to corrections, reentry, juveniles, and females. It includes links to webinars on managing sex offenders, the Sex Offender Management Assessment and Planning Initiative (SOMAPI...

A recent article from The PEW Charitable Trusts, States Grapple with Girls in the Juvenile Justice System , discusses how juvenile girls often have more complex needs than boys and the challenge that brings to states and localities. Highlights from the article include: Male juvenile offenders still greatly outnumber females. But while the arrest rate for juveniles has declined over the past two decades, it has not fallen as sharply for girls as it has for boys. And minority girls are twice as likely...

SAMHSA’s GAINS Center for Behavioral Health and Justice Transformation is soliciting applications from communities interested in developing a capacity to provide trauma-informed training. The GAINS Center is offering a series of Train-The-Trainer (TTT) events to train local trainers to deliver its How Being Trauma-Informed Improves Criminal Justice System Responses training program. The target audiences for this training program are primarily community-based criminal justice system professionals...

Join this free webinar on December 9th from the National Training & Technical Assistance Center : What do we know about girls? As Paula Schaefer, national consultant on female responsive services in the juvenile justice system, notes in her research - girls are relational. This means that relationships are central to girls’ lives. The way girls perceive how the important people around them feel about them is the way girls will feel about themselves. It is essential that we take lessons...

A recent Washington Post article, We should stop putting women in jail. For anything. , leads with the “radical idea” to stop incarcerating women and close down women’s prisons and refers to a movement in Britain to do just that. The alternative to jailing women could model Britain’s approach where advocates “propose community sentences for nonviolent offenders and housing violent offenders in small custodial centers near their families.” Example programs in the...

National Institute of Corrections' Orientation for Probation and Parole Chief Executives will take place in Aurora, Colorado on Mar. 01, 2016 - Mar. 04, 2016 Course Description NIC continues to recognize the value of orientation for new probation and parole executives. This 40 hour blended learning course focuses on presenting core competencies and their related skills and behaviors to assist new chief executives with both the immediate knowledge and the long-term skills needed in the areas of...

As the premier training for pretrial leaders, NIC’s Orientation for New Pretrial Executives engages participants in a comprehensive 40-hour instructor lead course of study aimed at the unique issues, challenges and opportunities within the pretrial field. A experienced and diverse faculty of pretrial, performance management, evidence based practice, and legal experts lead orientation participants through study and discussion on the legal foundations of pretrial justice, professional standards...

NIC is offering DACUM Facilitator Training at the National Corrections Academy in Aurora, Colorado. DACUM (an acronym for Developing a Curriculum) is a process used for job analysis. A comprehensive job-task analysis is often the fir st step in establishing legally defensible training. In addition to curriculum development, DACUM can be used to develop operating procedures, position descriptions, performance standards, and assessment testing. DACUM can also be used as a basis for assessing training...

Mass incarceration in the United States is a hot topic in the news. The United States incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 residents. That number is higher than any other country in the world. Most of those incarcerated are men, but hidden in the incarceration numbers are the number of women held in correctional facilities. The Prison Policy Initiative released a new report that compares the incarceration rate of women in individual U.S. states to other countries. This report, States of Women's...