Best Practices in Corrections - Research Paper Example

Correctional substance abuse treatment Correctional substance abuse treatment aims at rehabilitating criminal of substance abuse. There are varieties of programs that aid substance abuse treatment. Federal bureau of prisons is the most effective of the substance abuse programs. This is because of the available facilities in the prison systems, the authority of the officers over the inmates and the long duration of time that the inmates spend within the facilities. One of the features of the bureau of prisons program is its long time existence from which quality ideas have been added to the program.

The program has particularly undergone many changes based on legislative measures such as “Anti Drug abuse act, and violent crime control and law enforcement act” among others (Fagan and Ax, 2003, p. 79). These laws have continually benefited the correctional program that is also being checked by the judicial institution through implementation of law. Similarly, the program adopts ‘evidence-based’ practice as an approach to ensuring quality services to the inmates. This induces a great advantage with respect to effectiveness of the applied services.

With decisions based on experiments, evidence based practice ensures that diagnosis and treatment for every inmate is accurate. The program is therefore characterized by a high level of efficiency for faster recovery of the subjects. Further, the Bureau of prisons is designed to extend their correctional services to the society upon the release of an inmate. This ensures completion of the designed goals of the program for comprehensive rehabilitation. Some of the specific services offered under the Bureau of Prisons includes “residential drug abuse treatment, non residential drug abuse treatment, drug abuse education, transitional services” among others (Fagan and Ax, 2003, p. 80, 81). The programs are professionally designed to facilitate treatment of the inmates by ensuring a favorable environment.

Residential drug abuse program is for example scheduled to run for about nine months with fixed number of session hours. The long period therefore offers sufficient opportunity for the inmates to respond to the treatments. Another feature of the program that makes it effective is the isolation of the inmates from other prisoners. Once an inmate has submitted to the treatment, he or she is taken to a facility that only hosts participants in the treatment. This plays an important role in protecting the participants from lapsing back during the treatment process.

Isolation of the participating inmates is essential in protecting them from negative influence of other inmates who have not regarded the program. If the two groups were allowed to interact, especially at the beginning of the treatment process then participants would be easily influenced from completing their sessions. The residential program also has a laid down procedure for recruitment and treatment that ensures that the deserving and committed individuals are offered the opportunity. The process that begins from a person’s conviction is followed by evaluation for the necessity of the program before an individual is allowed to subscribe into the program.

The voluntary aspect of the program also motivates participation. Inmates would develop a contrary opinion if the program were compulsory because it would be associated with punishment as opposed to treatment. Similarly, the reward upon