WITNESS
Michael S. Hamden has practiced law for 20 years, first as an attorney with North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, Inc., and, beginning in 1995, as the Executive Director of that organization. Mr. Hamden, who serves as the prisoner advocate on the Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects at Research Triangle Institute, is a consultant to the National Academies of Science, Institute of Medicine as a member of the Committee on Ethical Considerations for the Protection of Prisoners Involved in Research. Hamden has authored several articles and publications, the most recent of which is The Law and Policy of Sentencing and Corrections (7th ed. 2005) with Lynn S. Branham. A long-standing member of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mr. Hamden serves as an officer of the ABA's Corrections and Sentencing Committee. He is also the ABA's liaison to the American Correctional Association (ACA), where he is serving a third term on the Standards Committee (promulgating standards which reflect "best practices" for all types of correctional facilities), and is in his second term on the Commission of Accreditation for Corrections (ruling on applications for ACA accreditation and enforcing operational standards nationwide).
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STATEMENT
How can responsible correctional professionals deal with the challenges of ever-increasing numbers of offenders and diminishing resources, and yet fulfill their legal obligation to provide humane living conditions in the facilities they operate? The answer to that question can be found in the implementation of those policies, procedures, and practices that comprise American Correctional Association (ACA) standards. The best correctional practices can be instituted independently of the accreditation process, but the wealth of resources, expertise, and support available through ACA make accreditation the most efficient and cost-effective way to achieve that objective.
ACA accreditation denotes professional achievement and the commitment of an agency or facility to correctional excellence in a dynamic and on-going process. Correctional professionals who undertake that commitment, and facilities that achieve that distinction, can point to objective criteria by which their accomplishments can be measured.
But even the best-intentioned correctional professional who employs state-of-the art learning and institutes the best practices of the profession in operating a facility may eventually face the constraints of limited resources, either in terms of the physical plant, the necessary financial resources, or both. Again, ACA standards provide objective criteria by which resource needs can be measured. Such criteria provide persuasive support for budgetary proposals, and a powerful defense to claims of deliberate indifference. If inhumane prison conditions are permitted to prevail, responsibility will lie, not with the correctional professional, but with those who were aware that inmates were deprived of life's basic necessities and yet failed to act.
Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission
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