Prevention and Mitigation Analysis - Essay Example

?Prevention and Mitigation Analysis Prevention and Mitigation Analysis Risk management is the function of a business administration that involves identifying risk factors while assessing and prioritizing them according to the intensity of their probable effect on the business (Dorfman, 2007). The management then uses the available company resources to mitigate the effects of the risk factor with the intention of eliminating it, reducing the losses it could bring, or maximizing any opportunities that may come about. There are various strategies for risk management, which depend on the risk, company preparedness and available resources. They include risk transfer, risk avoidance, risk reduction, and accepting the risk if everything else fails. All these strategies require the firm’s management to be ready to handle any risks since they happen when least expected and their effects can be devastating. The Arizona Department of Corrections operates 13 prison facilities, including the Arizona State Prison Complex – Lewis, which has six units, all named after correction officers killed in line of duty. The Dale Morey unit is one of these units where in early 2004, prisoners attempted to escape but ended up holding correction officers hostage. The standoff lasted for 15 days between January 18 and February 2, before the conclusion of negotiations and the release of hostages. This event exposed various loopholes in the management style of the Arizona Department of Corrections. The management could have prevented the long 15 days that the two officers went through had officials responsible foreseen and acted on these weaknesses. Though the ordeal ended peacefully, it caused trauma to the officers involved, and the people lost faith in the institution. Therefore, the management had to work extra hard to remedy these. Strategies to Handle the Situation The management could have done several things to avoid the standoff, or at least reduce its effects. Since prevention is always better than cure, preventive strategies are usually more effective and less expensive as it is easy to predict an occurrence but not its effects. Therefore, of all the recommendations discussed, the management of any institution should always attempt preventive measures. Measures the prison management could adopt include; acquiring knowledge on disaster preparedness, self-defense training for officers, hiring professional crisis negotiators, employing adequate prison officers, humane treatment of prisoners, increasing officers’ pay, improvement of prison infrastructure, and providing officers with better weapons (Greenstone, 2005). Education The Arizona Department of Corrections should take all its employees for training one aspect or the other of risk management. This means that all employees should have the guiding steps to take in case something out of the norm happens. In that case, their efforts would not conflict or waste in other manners, as they would all be geared towards achieving a common goal in an orderly manner. The management should make schedules such that employees go for training in disaster management on a rotational basic, so that the information would be up to date with the situation at their workplace. In addition, there should be maximum employee participation in making decisions that affect the conditions of the working environment. The management should perform an analysis to identify the effective portions of training and single out others for modification, improvement, or reinforcement. Employees should undergo an analysis too, to identify the most valuable ones, especially among the low ranking correction officers. The management should single out high performing low rank officers, recognize, and award them so that other officers may emulate them as ideal employees. This system should be successful considering that the only other people that these officers interact with are criminals (Hubbard, 2009). Self-Defense Training Though officers go for rigorous training before employment, the system causes them to relax and makes them vulnerable in case of an attack. The prison management, therefore, should schedule refresher courses for officers to ensure that they are in top physical fitness state and capable of protecting themselves. Since they deal with hardened criminals who are hard to deal with, these officers should acquire many self-defense techniques for them so stand a chance against the prisoners. This means that their training should not just be physical but cognitive as well, since the brain is the most effective of all weapons. Once they acquire these skills, they should be horned in drills, and mock attacks to ensure than no event catches them off guard. Professional Crisis Negotiators When disaster strikes, an institution does not get time to prepare; which is the reason why the prison management should strive to prevent disaster from striking, but be ready for the worst for the worst that could happen. Having professional crisis negotiators among other disaster management professionals is one of the preparations the prison management should make. These officials could have helped to reduce the length of the 15-day ordeal as their training involves courses on dealing with criminals. Since these specialists are expensive to maintain, the Correction Department should get into contracts with independent firms where it can source labor from in times of need (Borodzicz, 2005). Improved Working Conditions The Department should make working in prisons a pleasant experience for its officers, including changing the situation for both the prisoners and officers. For instance, the prison has overpopulation; with the wing that had a standoff having 840 prisoners instead of the 800 it should accommodate. Beds are broken, facilities are not functional, and the infrastructure is dilapidated; some prisoners are held in tents and trailers. These conditions do not prevent prisoners from overpowering officers and escaping especially since the prison is understaffed. Therefore, the first step towards achieving a safe working environment for officers is by improving infrastructure and expanding the prison to accommodate more prisoners. Alternatively, the management should relocate prisoners to other less congested and more equipped prisons before it makes the desired changes in the prison. The second thing the management could do to improve the working conditions of employees would be to employ more staff. This would reduce the current ratio of over 20 prisoners for every officer; reducing the load and chances of suffering from fatigue. At the time of the standoff, 14 of the 20 officers on duty had less than a year working experience. This is because people treat the prison job as a path to getting a better job since it required minimum qualifications but at the same time had poor pay after training. Therefore, after training, officers leave to look for greener pastures. As a remedy, the management should increase the pay package for officers, in addition to, other improvements. This would align their salaries with others in the working class in the same category; effectively minimizing the likelihood of officers changing careers or moving to other prisons. In this age of technological advancement and organized crime, the Department should equip prisons with state-of-the-art equipment for monitoring and handling prisoners. This would ensure that officers closely monitor prisoners such that they cannot make a move without notice. If they did attempt acts of malice, the officers should have modern weapons and other equipment to deal with the prisoners and minimize the damage that the latter would cause. Humane Treatment of Prisoners Though they have gone against the law, tried, convicted, and jailed, prisoners are still people and usually respond positively to pleasant treatment. This means that the prison managements should discourage inhumane treatment of prisoners like torture; instead, insisting that their road to reform be that of understanding, counseling, and peace. If the prisoners viewed prison as a place for reform rather than the common misconception, then they are less likely to go against prison regulations since they would see officers as fellow people rather than agents of a system aimed at making their lives miserable. This recommendation seems far-fetched, but the correction department has to start somewhere if it has to achieve any improvement in the prisons (Bacon, 2009). Conclusion Risk management is a function of the management of an institution that involves identifying risks, analyzing them for impact, and offering remedy economically according to the intensity of damage likely to result from the risk. Risk management after the damage has occurred is necessary to prevent repeat occurrence; however, it is suitable for management to anticipate risks before they occur. In addition to its being cheaper, preventive risk management, avoids exposure of those involved from the ill effects of disaster, and hence is the preferred of all risk management strategies. The Arizona Department of Corrections could have avoided the standoff that traumatized two prison officers and spoilt the reputation of the department. Some of the ways to avoid this include equipping employees with better equipment to deal with prisoners, employ more officers to prevent overwhelming by workload, increase their pay to increase motivation, and encourage humane treatment of prisoners among other strategies. However, since it happened, those responsible should implement these recommendations to avoid future occurrences. In addition, they should implement these changes with recent developments in mind such that the changes are not outdated at the end of the implementation. References Bacon, C. (2009). Prison reform. New York, US: General Books, 2009 Borodzicz, E. P. (2005). Risk, crisis and security management, Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Dorfman, M. S. (2007). Introduction to risk management and insurance. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Greenstone, J.L. (2005). The elements of police hostage and crisis negotiations: Critical incidents and how to respond to them. Binghamton, New York: The Haworth Press. Hubbard, D. (2009). The failure of risk management: Why it's broken and how to fix it. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Read More