CHANGING PHILOSOPHIES AND PRISON MANAGEMENT*

There are a number of fundamental problems in prison administration. Initially, goals and objectives must be established, but these are subject to differing perceptions by management, staff, and inmates. Some aims and objectives such as the maintenance of order and prevention of escape are tangible and thus quantifiable expressions of prison practice. Others, however, are less easily assessed- as, for example, the inmates adjustment to prison life, and his "rehabilitation". Guidelines formulated to achieve administrative aims and objectives are open to misinterpretation while their implementation may unintentionally act as a catalyst for staff or inmate discontent. An awareness of these various problems is basic to prison management. Contemporary penology portrays the modern institution as playing a role in the inmates ' subsequent adjustment to society. This role is the subject of often bitter debate among the interested parties. Most of the criticism of the prison sytem is levelled at present methods used to help the inmate reach some degree of societal normalisation. Since the birth of the modern prison system prison managers an