Types of the us correctional institutions

Today the typical state prison in the United States is a walled fortress of stone and steel. Within are cell houses, administrative offices, schools, chapels, factories, workshops, a dining hall, an auditorium, a hospital, a recreation yard, and sometimes a gymnasium. Outside are the main adminis­trative offices, houses for the warden and his principal assist­ants and their families, and sometimes a prison farm. The normal capacity of the state prison may range from a few hundred to thousands. Many institutions have a capacity of 1,000 to 3,000. The Michigan State Prison at Jackson, which is the largest prison in the United States, has a nor­mal capacity of 6,000. Most of the state prisons are built along the lines of the original Auburn plan with interior cell blocks. The cells are small, the average being about five feet wide, eight feet long, and eight feet high. They are usually equipped with an iron bed, bedding, a locker, a small table, a chair, an electric light, a toilet, and a wash bowl.

The typical men’s reformatory looks very much like a state prison. Although usually the reformatory is smaller, its facilities and equipment are the same as those of the prison. Women’s prisons and reformatories, however, are quite different. In general, their buildings are attractive and well kept, having individual bedrooms and pleasant living and dining rooms. Some of the newer correctional institu­tions for women are built on the cottage plan. Even when women are confined in a section of the men’s prison, their quarters are more attractive than those of other prisoners in the institution. Prison farms and camps have dormito­ries and farm buildings, often surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Road camps may have either permanent buildings or portable structures, and these, too, may be enclosed by a fence.

Interpol (international criminal police organisation)

The international criminal is by no means a new type of wrongdoer; he came into being with the invention of frontiers. What is relatively new is the speed and facility with which the international criminal may now travel from one country to another. Moreover, political changes in Eu­rope and elsewhere have resulted in extensive migrations and mixing of peoples, which favour international crime.

What is an "international criminal"? The definition of this type of wrongdoer is not based on any legal concept since there is in law no such thing as international crime. The term is simply one of practical convenience. For exam­ple, a man who kills a woman in Paris and then takes refuge in, say, Belgium, thereby becomes an "international crim­inal".

Interpol became necessary mainly because of the need both for a united front for the combating of international crime and for exchange of ideas and methods between the police forces of the world.

In 1914, for the first time a number of police officials, magistrates and jurists met to establish the basis of interna­tional police cooperation. However, several months later the First World War broke out.

During the second criminal police congress, in Vienna in 1923 the President of Police of that city once again voiced the idea of establishing international police cooperation. A scheme was approved by 130 delegates and an Internation­al Criminal Police Commission with headquarters in Vien­na came into being. It worked satisfactorily until the begin­ning of the Second World War.

In 1946, the old members of the ICPC which had been disrupted by the war, met in Brussels to revive the idea of international police cooperation.

Meeting again in Vienna, in 1956, bv which time there were fifty-five member countries, the organisation decided to adopt a new constitution. It comprised fifty articles. Under it the International Criminal Police Commission was renamed the "International Criminal Police Organisation – Interpol".

The general aims of Interpol are defined in article two of the Constitution as being: to ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", to establish and develop all institutions likely to contribute effectively to the prevention and suppression of ordinary law crimes.

The combating of international crime is divided into three distinct but complementary activities: the exchange of police information; the identification of wanted or sus­pected individuals; the arrest of those who are wanted on a warrant issued by the judicial authorities.