Physical Fitness: Law Enforcement, and Emergency Management

Fit for Duty? The Need for Physical Fitness Programs for Law Enforcement Officers

By Sergeant Adrienne Quigley, Arlington County, Virginia, Police Department; and IACP Fellow

It should not be surprising that physical fitness and exercise improve long-term health. Studies have shown that sedentary people have twice the risk of coronary artery disease than active people as well as a higher risk of stroke, colon cancer, and back injuries. Only 22 percent of U.S. adults get at least 30 minutes of light to moderate exercise five or more times a week, and less than 10 percent exercise vigorously at least three times a week.¹ More than 50 percent of deaths in the United States are attributable to these and other lifestyle choices.²

Regular physical activity helps to prevent coronary heart disease and assists with weight control. Weight training and strength exercises build muscles and endurance and enhance flexibility, thus protecting the body from injury and disability. Consistent physical activity has also been shown to reduce blood pressure, blood lipids, and glucose tolerance, thus helping to prevent hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes. 

Expending at least 2,000 calories a week in physical activity reduces an individual’s risk of dying of any cause by 28 percent. Mortality rates for unfit men were estimated at 64 per 10,000 persons. However, that number drops to 18.6 per 10,000 persons when looking at those that are most fit.³ Being physically fit translates into fewer sick days, disabilities, and injuries—thereby reducing health-care costs.

Even though many U.S. citizens are aware of these or similar statistics, the U.S. population in general is not as fit as it should be—and police officers are no exception. In recent years, there has been a reduction in the health and fitness of law enforcement officers across the United States. This lack of fitness makes officers prone to on-duty injuries and illnesses, increases their exposure to liability, and engenders a loss of respect from the community based on their appearance.

The Current Danger

From 1983 to 1993, a study was conducted by the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research that randomly sampled approximately 1,700 officers from different law enforcement agencies across the country. The results show that when compared with the general population, officers’ average fitness levels are below normal in the areas of aerobic fitness, body fat, and abdominal strength and average in upper body strength and lower-back flexibility. The data show that law enforcement officers are less fit in most areas than at least half of all U.S. citizens despite the fact that the physical demands of their profession require that they be more fit than the average person.⁴

As a group, law enforcement officers have a greater morbidity and mortality rate than the general public, due mostly to cardiovascular disease, colon cancer, and suicide. Recent studies have shown an annual increase in the frequency and severity of cardiovascular incidences among law enforcement personnel. The risk of having a heart attack doubles with each decade of law enforcement service.⁵ Because of this, numerous states have adopted the “heart and lung bill,” allowing officers who develop cardiovascular disease to take an early retirement.

Furthermore, law enforcement officers suffer more job-related stress than people in other occupations. Many realize that the nature of the profession itself exposes officers to increased levels of stress. Making split-second, lifesaving decisions; facing inherent dangers; working shift work and long hours; and constantly interacting with people who are upset, angry, or uncooperative all take a toll on individuals. 

Job-related stress is a major health concern for the law enforcement community because it can affect the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of the officers. Stress related emotional problems such as divorce, suicide, and alcoholism are prevalent in the law enforcement community. Physically, stress has been linked to cardiovascular disease, hypertension, lower-back pain, and gastrointestinal disorders. However, exercise and physical activity have been shown to reduce stress levels and alleviate some of the pressures officers feel as part of their profession.

To determine at what level of health risk an individual may be, a statistical measure called relative risk was developed. Relative risk evaluates the likelihood of dying or developing a particular disease for an individual with an identified risk factor. An average risk would be noted as a relative risk of 1.0. 

The relative risk for law enforcement for being unfit and inactive is 2.2. This means that unfit and inactive law enforcement officers have a chance of suffering a heart attack 2.2 times greater than those officers who participate in a physical fitness program. If an officer has a second risk factor, such as smoking, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, the increased risk rises to 6.6 times.⁶ 

One study of a major metropolitan police department showed that almost 50 percent of its officers had at least three of the five major risk factors for coronary heart disease: high cholesterol, smoking, obesity, inactivity/poor cardiovascular fitness, or high blood pressure. Because of this, it is not hard to understand why the average life span of an officer after retirement is only two to five years.⁷ A major contributing factor to this phenomenon is the lack of personal and agency fitness and wellness programs.

Fitness and Performance

In the law enforcement field, fitness also has a direct impact on job performance. Based on job descriptions from agencies across the country, a core list of physical tasks required to perform the duties of a law enforcement officer were identified. The critical tasks—those tasks where poor performance could put officers or the public in jeopardy—were identified as running, climbing, jumping, lifting/carrying, dragging, pushing, and use of force.⁸

For over 75 percent of police apprehensions, the amount of resistance given by the suspect is described as moderate or strong, and the average amount of time it takes to subdue a subject can vary between 30 seconds and two minutes. For most physical tasks lasting over two minutes, officers use 75–90 percent of their maximum capability.⁹ Cardiovascular endurance, anaerobic power, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition are all underlying factors in successful job performance.

An in-depth study conducted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1997 examined 40 cases of serious assaults against law enforcement officers across the country. The incidents were analyzed through offender and officer interviews and document reviews. 

Of the 52 officers participating in the study, 47 stated that they were in “excellent” health at the time of the assault, four reported being in “better than average” health, and the remaining officer reported “average” health. Seventy-three percent of the officers were involved in a physical fitness program, the most common of which were running and weightlifting. Repeatedly, officers credited their fitness level with aiding them in their survival.¹⁰

Physical fitness can also protect officers from becoming victims. In the numerous offender interviews conducted by the FBI over the course of the past 10 years, it was learned that offenders typically size up their victims when deciding what they are going to do. Many had difficulty identifying a particular trait or mannerism that made them pick or not pick a particular officer, but they did articulate that the deciding factor was whether or not they felt they could “take them.” If officers appeared fit and conducted themselves in a professional manner, offenders hesitated; however, when officers were perceived as potential targets, offenders capitalized on the situation. 

Officers need to be cognizant of the image they convey and recognize that their appearance and demeanor in uniform is a primary factor in how others will perceive them.¹¹

Cost of the Least Fit

National accident, injury, and illness data have shown that 20 percent of the average law enforcement agency’s workforce is responsible for 80 percent of the cost of the accidents. The small percentage of least-fit officers is responsible for the majority of the compensable injuries. Various law enforcement agencies calculated the average cost of an in-service heart attack to be between $400,000 and $700,000. Heart disease accounts for 20–50 percent of all early retirements, and back problems account for another 15–35 percent. Lack of physical activity is one major contributor to both conditions.¹² One study tabs the cost of early disability at 165 percent of an officer’s salary.¹³

Establishing Fitness and Wellness Programs

Due to the alarming health data and the steady decline in the wellness of U.S. citizens, a task force was created by various law enforcement organizations to establish a model health and fitness program that would be voluntary. Unfortunately, even with a large publicity campaign, the program was not supported by the majority of law enforcement agencies across the country. 

The state of North Carolina was one of the few jurisdictions that recognized the dire need for intervention in the area of health and fitness and approved funding for seven agencies to participate in a pilot study. The data show improvements across the board in overall fitness. Significant cardiovascular and strength improvements were noted, and several participants were even able to stop taking medication for diabetes and hypertension because of their weight loss. The participating agencies reported a 25 percent increase in productivity through a variety of factors: reduced absenteeism, reduced turnover rate, reduced accidents, and reduced worker’s compensation claims. 

Research has shown that for every one dollar invested into fitness and wellness programs, the return ranges from two to five dollars.¹⁴

A total fitness and wellness program provides benefits to participants as well as to the agency that establishes such a program. Officers stand to profit from an improved ability to perform job functions, reduced stress, and better physical and psychological preparation. Agencies stand to benefit in terms of efficiency as well as fiscally. Officers are less likely to be injured or retire on disability, thus reducing the costs of disability payments and the hiring and training of new employees. Studies analyzing the civilian workforce show that active employees demonstrated greater productivity. Based on this theory, the performance ratings of fit and unfit officers were examined, and it was learned that the more fit and active officers received higher ratings on their performance evaluations than their less fit and inactive peers. In addition to this, officers that are more fit and active have 40–70 percent less absenteeism than less-fit officers.¹⁵ 

Agencies that utilize proactive fitness and wellness programs are considered preferred risks by state municipal league self-insured pooling organizations, and incentive programs have been established to encourage more participation.

By implementing an exercise program, agencies also reduce their liability by ensuring that officers are prepared to handle tasks while controlling the possible risks and their associated costs. 

Failure to provide fitness and wellness training can open an agency to unnecessary liability, especially in cases alleging excessive force. In the case of Parker v. District of Columbia, the arresting officer was accused of using excessive force to effect an arrest of a combative subject. The officer’s lack of physical fitness and inability to use defensive tactics or less lethal options resulted in his discharging his firearm, rendering the suspect a paraplegic. The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department was found to be deliberately indifferent to the physical training needs of its officers, and the plaintiff was awarded a substantial sum of money.¹⁶

A total fitness program incorporates the development of good lifestyle habits, including regular exercise, good nutrition, weight management, stress management, and substance abuse prevention. Such a program must be supported by an agency’s administrators for it to be successful. Fitness and health programs are believed to increase employee loyalty, improve morale, and decrease turnover. 

More importantly, employees benefit from improved quality of life and health while reducing employeerelated accidents, injuries, and illnesses, thus reducing operating costs. There is a recent trend within the law enforcement community to recognize the importance of fitness as it relates to job performance, officer safety, and wellness. Several agencies have initiated incentive programs for officers to encourage participation and improve health.

Fitness and Officer Safety

There has been a long-standing belief that deaths in the line of duty are unacceptable, and law enforcement professionals have done everything they can to reduce them. This philosophy should also extend to officer injuries. Law enforcement leaders cannot accept the proposition that accidents or injuries are a reality of the law enforcement profession. The only acceptable belief is zero officers killed or injured. 

Studies have shown repeatedly that physical fitness has a direct impact on reducing injuries and improving personal well-being as well as work performance. There needs to be a national push to increase the development and participation in fitness and health programs by law enforcement agencies to protect officers and save lives. At the 2006 annual IACP conference, a resolution recognizing the importance of law enforcement fitness and wellness programs was adopted. The IACP commends the development of fitness programs utilizing activities generally performed by police officers and encourages the adoption of career-long fitness and wellness standards by law enforcement agencies. ?

Notes:

¹J. E. Smith Jr. and G. Gregory Tooker, “Health and Fitness in Law Enforcement: A Voluntary Model Program Response to a Critical Issue,” CALEA Update, no. 87 (February 2005): 28, http://www.calea.org/Online/newsletter/No87/healthfitness.htm (accessed April 29, 2008).
²Thomas R. Collingwood et al., “Why Officers Need to Be Fit,” chap. 1 in Fit Force Administrators Guide (Champaign, Illinois: Human Kinetics, 1998), 5.
³Ibid., 13.
⁴Ibid., 8.
⁵Ibid., 10.
⁶Ibid., 11.
⁷Smith and Tooker, “Health and Fitness in Law Enforcement,” 28.
⁸Collingwood, “Why Officers Need to Be Fit,” 3.
⁹Ibid., 4.
¹⁰Anthony J. Pinizzotto, Edward F. Davis, and Charles E. Miller III, In the Line of Fire (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997), 14.
¹¹Anthony J. Pinizzotto and Edward F. Davis, “Offender’s Perceptual Shorthand: What Messages Are Law Enforcement Officers Sending to Offenders?” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 68, no. 6 (June 1999): 1, http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/1999/jun99leb.pdf (accessed April 29, 2008).
¹²Smith and Tooker, “Health and Fitness in Law Enforcement,” 28.
¹³Ibid.
¹⁴G. Gregory Tooker and David D. Cashwell, “Revisiting the Fitness and Health in Law Enforcement Model Program,” CALEA Update, no. 96 (February 2008): 23.
¹⁵Smith and Tooker, “Health and Fitness in Law Enforcement,” 28.
¹⁶Parker v. District of Columbia, 850 F.2d 708 (D.C. Cir. 1988).

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From The Police Chief, vol. LXXV, no. 6, June 2008. Copyright held by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, 515 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314 USA.

U.,S. Virgin Islands. Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency

Agency Overview

Our Mission The principal mission of VITEMA as a first response coordinator, is to save lives and property of the territory’s population, by preparing territorial organizations to respond to, recover from and mitigate against All-Hazards, through planning, coordinating, training and exercise activities and is the sole Virgin Islands government agency designated to supervise, administer and coordinate All-Hazards response and recovery operations. Authority is derived from V. I. Code,Title 23, the VITEMA Act (5233) of 1986 and the Emergency Management Act of 2009. Our Vision To be the pre-eminent emergency management agency in the Caribbean and the Nation by providing an effective, responsible, and professional network of services to ensure resiliency before, during, and after a natural or man-made incident that may impact the safety and well-being of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency (VITEMA) is the lead emergency management agency for the Territory as defined in the Virgin Islands Code, Title 23, Chapter 10. As such, the VITEMA’s mission is to prepare for, coordinate the response to and the recovery from all hazards and threats that impacts the Virgin Islands. In recent years, VITEMA has focused the majority of its planning and training efforts on hurricane and coastal storm preparedness. While this preparedness effort is extremely important, the Territory faces many equally dangerous and significant threats from other natural and man-made disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis and terrorism. The Territory must maintain a high level of readiness in order to effectively respond to these threats especially in light of recent earthquake events in Haiti and Chile in our hemisphere.  To meet these threats, Governor John P. de Jongh, Jr., in 2009, reorganized emergency management in the Virgin Islands by consolidating the VITEMA, the Virgin Islands Office of Homeland Security, the 9-1-1 communication centers, and the Public Assistance Grant Program. Moving VITEMA’s personnel, program, and functions from under the auspices of the Office of the Adjutant General, the Office of Management and Budget and the VI Police Department will bring greater focus and enhance the importance of emergency management throughout the Territory. This approach has been further strengthened by elevating the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency to a cabinet-level agency under the Office of the Governor of the Virgin Islands.  The new VITEMA has been established following the National Incident Management System (NIMS), which is a comprehensive, nationwide systematic approach to emergency management. The system standardizes resource management procedures for optimum coordination among different islands, departments, and agencies of the V.I. Government and the private sector. VITEMA, as it is reorganized, enhances organizational and technological operations and cooperation, which promotes all-hazard preparedness.  The components of VITEMA include logistics, preparedness, operations, grant manage ment, administration and finance and recovery. You can learn more about VITEMA's Divisions, here. Governor John P. deJongh, Jr. has fulfilled his commitment to implementing a 9-1-1 system with modern equipment and services required to assist dispatchers and first responders in providing professional emergency response services to V.I. citizens – and the millions of annual guests – in the Territory. The Unified Communications Center is currently operational on St. Croix and on St. Thomas/St. John/Water Island.    During the 2009-2010 fiscal year VITEMA has made significant progress on improving its infrastructure. With funding from the Legislature, the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on St John was refurbished and modern telecommunication and video teleconference capabilities were installed. Simultaneously, on St. Croix, with assistance from the V.I Government some repairs of the facility were completed. On St Thomas, the Government acquired the E.D. Plumbing Building and has reconfigured and rebuilt the interior to meet the needs of the newly reorganized VITEMA. This facility also includes modern telecommunication equipment, a fusion center, a new EOC, and is the home of the 9-1-1 Communication Center.    As VITEMA improves performance and coordinates services to reduce response time, the Agency will better serve the V.I. community before, during and after emergencies. The VITEMA is committed to being the number one (1) emergency management agency in the Caribbean and will continue striving to provide quality emergency response services and to protect the security of our homeland in the Virgin Islands.

FOCUS: U.S. Virgin Islands Teen CERT Program

Virgin Islands Territorial
Emergency Management Agency

February 7, 2012

VITEMA, St. Croix Rescue Kicks Off Teen CERT at Elena Christian Jr. High School

The Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency (VITEMA) and the St. Croix Rescue Squad, on Wednesday, will welcome Elena Christian Junior High School students to the Teen CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) pilot program. A brief opening ceremony is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. in the school’s auditorium.

Teen CERT, an offshoot of the adult CERT program, falls under the umbrella of the Citizen Corp Council, a national organization created by President Bush in 2002 to help coordinate volunteer activities that will make communities safer, stronger, and better prepared to respond to any emergency situation. 

Thirty-six St. Elena Christian students signed up to join Teen CERT, becoming among the first teen groups to be certified in basic disaster response. Between Wednesday and Friday, the students will be taught skills such as fire safety and how to suppress, light search and rescue, disaster medical operations and team organization.

Certified CERT trainers with the St. Croix Rescue Academy are serving as instructors.

On Sunday, the program will culminate with a mock full-scale disaster exercise and certificate presentation at the St. Croix Rescue Academy in Five Corners. The mock exercise is set to begin at approximately 1 p.m. and will test all of the disaster response and management skills students learned in the classroom.

Completion of the program means that the Elena Christian Junior High School now has within its campus, students qualified to assist others following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help. Teen CERT members also are encouraged to support emergency response agencies by taking a more active role in emergency preparedness projects in their community.

“We are proud of the students who volunteered for this training,” VITEMA Director Elton Lewis said. “It shows that they are concerned with the well-being of their families and the community as a whole and we applaud them for that. I also want to thank the Elena Christian school administrators for allowing us to bring the program to their campus.”

VITEMA launched the Teen CERT program in the Virgin Islands in April of last year at the Seventh Day Adventist High School as part of pilot program created to educate and train student-volunteers nationwide in preparing for disasters that impact their areas. Teen CERT certification is also available to faith-based communities, youth organizations and members of clubs and civic organizations.

The media is invited to visit the program at the Elena Christian Junior High School between Wednesday and Friday and at the St. Croix Rescue Academy on Sunday. The training calendar is attached for planning purposes. 

For more information about Teen CERT contact VITEMA’s Deputy Director for Preparedness Al Javois at 773-2244 ext. 222.

Learn more about Teen CERT: http://www.vitema.gov/cert

U.S. nuclear plants similar to Fukushima spark concerns

By Matt Smith, CNN

updated 8:41 AM EST, Fri February 17, 2012

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• U.S. OKs new nuclear reactors a year after Japan disaster
• 23 GE Mark I reactors in U.S. share same design as Fukushima Daiichi plant
• Many are aging, but have undergone safety improvements
• GE says design is proven, reliable technology that is safe to use

Programming note: Join CNN's Amber Lyon for a Special Investigations Unit report on America's aging GE Mark I nuclear reactors, including the 40-year-old Vermont Yankee plant this Saturday and Sunday night at 8 ET/PT on "CNN Presents."

 

(CNN) -- As the United States prepares to build its first new nuclear power reactors in three decades, concerns about an early generation of plants have resurfaced since last year's disaster in Japan.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant -- the subject of a battle between state authorities and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over its continued operation -- uses one of 23 U.S. reactors built with a General Electric-designed containment housing known as the Mark I.

It's the same design that was used at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where three reactors melted down after the station was struck by the tsunami that followed Japan's historic earthquake in March 2011. The disaster resulted in the widespread release of radioactive contamination that forced more than 100,000 people from their homes.

GE says the Mark I design has operated safely for more than 40 years and has been modified periodically to meet changing regulations. No nuclear plant could have avoided a meltdown after being swamped by a tsunami and losing power to cooling systems for an extended period of time, the company says -- and at least one expert CNN spoke to agrees.

But concerns about the Mark I's ability to contain the consequences of a severe accident have been raised for decades, and critics say the Fukushima Daiichi accident shows it can't survive a real-world disaster.

Concerns over aging nuclear plants

Georgia county embraces nuclear reactor

New nuclear reactors approved

 

The structure was designed so steam that builds up in an overheating reactor can be diverted into a doughnut-shaped water tank known as the suppression pool, or torus, where it condenses back to water to reduce pressure inside the reactor containment building. That allows utilities to build a much smaller containment structure -- as little as one-sixth the size of those used at some U.S. plants.

Stephen Hanauer, a former top safety official at what was then the Atomic Energy Commission, warned in 1971 that in an accident in which the core slowly loses coolant and overheats, the Mark I containment "would overpressurize. That could lose the torus water source, hence ECCS [emergency core cooling system] as well as leak out fission products."

Read the 1971 Atomic Energy Commission document (PDF)

In 1978, the NRC, which replaced the AEC, decided that the design was safe. Hanauer agreed with that decision, which GE and plant operators have pointed out.

But the following year, there was a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and the NRC began an extensive safety review that resulted in several changes to the Mark I design.

One of those was a 1989 push for utilities to install a vent system that would release steam from the containment during an emergency. But as critics point out, that also raises the odds that radioactive material will escape the containment -- even with a "hardened" vent, one that tries to filter out the reactor byproducts.

Read the 1989 NRC recommendation for U.S. nuclear plants to install vents (PDF)

"A hardened vent is just a way of saying we're going to uncontain the containment," said Ken Bergeron, a former physicist at the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico, who took part in the NRC review. "The question comes up now -- and this is a really important question -- can the Mark I containment be made better?"

A Fukushima Daiichi reactor building is covered by a steel frame to prevent dispersal of radioactive materials.

Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear engineer and a leading critic of the Vermont Yankee plant, says the Japanese accident shows the Mark I containment system can't prevent a release of radioactivity in a meltdown.

Watch an excerpt from this weekend's CNN Special Investigations Unit report on Vermont Yankee
In an October hearing before the NRC's Petition Review Board, he said the vents were a "Band-Aid fix" for the design that failed "not once, not twice, but three times" at Fukushima Daiichi.

"True wisdom means knowing when to modify something and knowing when to stop," said Gundersen, who leads a state commission set up to monitor the Vermont Yankee plant.

Half of U.S. reactors are more than 30 years old

The GE Mark I containment structure design is a proven, reliable technology.

Michael Tetuan, GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy

 

The NRC has rejected a petition by anti-nuclear groups to immediately shut down all reactors using the GE Mark I containment. But it said it would examine several of the issues the petitioners raised as part of its review of the Japanese disaster.

Bergeron called the Mark I containment the smallest and weakest of those used in American plants. But he said the NRC "punted" in the face of industry resistance by calling only for utilities to install vents.

As for GE, he said, "They got the rule book from the federal government, and they said 'This is all you have to design it for.' The real question is: What should have been done after 1979, when you found out the rule book was flawed?"

GE says it has made several changes to the Mark I design since 1980 aimed at improving safety in the event of an accident. The manufacturer, which has a partnership with Japanese industrial giant Hitachi, stands by its product and says the tsunami that struck Fukushima Daiichi would have devastated any plant.

In Georgia this month, the U.S. OK'd building new nuclear reactors for the first time in over 30 years.

"There is no nuclear plant operating today that would have performed differently," GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy spokesman Michael Tetuan told CNN.

Bergeron agrees that no power station could have survived the long-term loss of power that occurred at the Japanese plant without a meltdown. But he noted that at Three Mile Island, the worst U.S. accident to date, there were "essentially zero emissions" from its much larger containment structure.  "From the point of view of public safety, that's a home run," he said.

Tetuan said the nuclear industry is still studying what happened in Japan, "and there will undoubtedly be lessons learned that will need to be implemented across the industry and across all types of nuclear plants, including the Mark I." But he added, "The GE Mark I containment structure design is a proven, reliable technology. It fulfills all regulatory requirements in one of the most highly regulated industries in the world."

Commission: U.S. nukes are safe, but ...

Japan will need decades to clean up after Fukushima Daiichi, the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. About 110,000 people are still displaced from homes, a Japanese government commission reported in December.

We need still a little bit more time to find out what really happened John Lee, University of Michigan

A 20-kilometer (12-mile) radius around the plant remains off-limits. Workers have peered only briefly into the damaged reactor buildings, and experts say a full damage report may take years.

"We need still a little bit more time to find out what really happened," said John Lee, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Michigan. "It took three years at Three Mile Island to be able to open up the pressure vessel," Lee said. "So we're not quite there yet."

2011 nuclear power report: No changes needed

Michigan nuclear plant cited for safety violations

The U.S. nuclear industry hasn't built a new reactor since Three Mile Island. But on February 9, the NRC approved two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia.

The reactors are of a different design than the GE plants at Fukushima Daiichi and in the United States.

CNN's Todd Schwarzschild and Curt Merrill contributed to this report.

Correcting Corrections Worldwide: Best Practices Reforming Prisons

By Carolyn Cosmos
Written on February 2, 2012

Also See: Worst Offenders Worldwide

When Pope Benedict XVI visited one of Italy's biggest prisons shortly before Christmas, he called its overcrowding and degradations a "double sentence," Reuters reported. The Italian government had announced reforms to Rome's Rebibbia Prison only two days before the pontiff's visit.

The Italian government is hardly alone in its struggle to instill order behind bars: As of January 2011, 10 million people were incarcerated worldwide, an all-time high, according to the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and overcrowding is "the biggest single problem facing prison systems" around the world, including the United States. It endangers inmate health and prevents prisons from functioning as they should, added an October 2011 report by the nonprofit Penal Reform International.

In short, civilian prisons everywhere are packed and problematic — and it's not just an issue of treating criminals humanely; it's a larger issue of ensuring that the entire corrections system works, keeping both inmates and society safe.

But even the best prisons don't currently work that well. For example, Norway's prisons are highly rated by the World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index, but a fifth of those incarcerated in that country wind up behind bars again. The recidivism rate in the United States is more than double Norway's. And one of the worst offenders is Mexico, whose jails, recently profiled in The Diplomat, are in "a state of shambles and oftentimes a haven of crime" (also see "Locked Up But Let Loose: The Sorry State of Mexican Jails" in the January 2012 issue).

Fixing up the state of prisons worldwide is gaining steam on the back of rigorous science and data. These "best practices" rely on research, evidence-based operations and measurable outcomes — and while such academia-laden reforms may not sound especially exciting, they may be key to improving and strengthening criminal justice systems, an ugly but integral part of any functioning society.

And the issue is a huge one for the United States, home to the most prisoners on the planet. As former President Jimmy Carter pointed out in a New York Times op-ed last summer, "At the end of 1980, just before I left office, 500,000 people were incarcerated in America; at the end of 2009 the number was nearly 2.3 million. There are 743 people in prison for every 100,000 Americans, a higher portion than in any other country and seven times as great as in Europe. Some 7.2 million people are either in prison or on probation or parole — more than 3 percent of all American adults!"

Photo: Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services

The flag from the nation of Georgia joins the lobby of Maryland's Police and Correctional Training Commissions Public Safety Education and Training Center. After an international graduation, each country that trained with Maryland officials puts its flag on permanent display there.

The burgeoning prison population is a significant drain on taxpayer money, especially if not managed properly. So the United States has been turning to this notion of best prison practices to revamp its corrections mindset, while also reaching out to international partners and finding a unique niche for bilateral cooperation.

The best practices approach is rooted in Canada, but over the last decade it has spread across the United States and been adopted by major corrections and government organizations, according to one of its developers, Canadian Paul Gendreau, founder of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of New Brunswick-Saint John.

Gendreau told The Diplomat that best prison practices are well known in Britain and New Zealand, where he was asked to introduce the idea to corrections officials in the late 1980s. "The Scandinavian countries have always had progressive policies," Gendreau noted.

Complementing this approach are standards set by the United Nations, starting with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the adoption of rules for the treatment of prisoners in 1955. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime also helps countries build and reform prison systems with a special focus on community-based "restorative justice" efforts, and since 1999, U.N. peacekeeping operations have provided support to prison systems using a best practices model.

The United States has also embraced the paradigm: The National Institute of Corrections (NIC), part of the Department of Justice, provides training and technical assistance to corrections agencies throughout the United States and since the late 1990s has incorporated "evidence-based practices" into its efforts.

However, Gendreau and his longtime colleague Francis Cullen of the University of Cincinnati's School of Criminal Justice caution that these evidence-based interventions have practical limitations.

"It is important to realize that a 'best practice' is not a panacea," Cullen told The Diplomat. "There are no magical pills in corrections. That said, the research is clear in showing that programs that conform to best practices achieve substantial reductions in recidivism, upward of 20 percent, and that nearly all punitively oriented corrections programs are based on no empirical evidence that they work."

Examples of punitive approaches include prison "boot camps," humiliation strategies and the overuse of solitary confinement.

While the "punitive era" in corrections that started in the 1970s in the United States "may have peaked," Gendreau said, there is a lingering "lack of respect for scientific knowledge." Nevertheless, best practices are generally accepted today in professional circles — but the bigger problem now is implementation: finding the funds, the political will and the managerial savvy to put proven approaches into practice.

Interestingly, several local systems are doing just that, aided by the State Department and its international partners in a little-known diplomatic collaboration to improve criminal justice both at home and abroad.
The State Department has teamed up with local law enforcement institutions in five states — Maryland, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and California — under programs run by its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).

The goal is two-fold: enhance state-level law enforcement capabilities through federally funded corrections training, while also helping other nations such as Mexico, Haiti and Afghanistan achieve greater security through the professionalization of their police and corrections officers.

International partners tour corrections sites in the United States and learn about best practices at certain standout facilities. INL's focus on state prisons in the United States started around 2009, when the office began examining facilities with particular strengths, in consultation with the American Correctional Association and various international partners. The training is aimed at middle and upper management, an INL corrections official told us — people who can return to their own countries, adapt what they learned to their needs, and train their own staffs.

More than 20 different countries have already taken part in the INL state-prison training programs. International guests have said they found the hands-on immersion experiences valuable. Training includes facility tours, team-building exercises, and the sharing of ideas.

For example, California, though recognized as having a highly troubled prison system, was nevertheless chosen by INL for its expertise in emergency preparedness and managing prison populations during manmade or natural disasters such as earthquakes, as well as its experience dealing with prison gangs. It's already offered corrections professionals from other countries flood-simulation training exercises.

New Mexico has a prison training academy, and Colorado provides best practices in transporting prisoners securely as well as in job training. Nebraska has an innovative female offender program, while Maryland specializes in probation and parole issues, according to the State Department.

Maryland's Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has a number of innovative programs, in fact, that attract international visitors for tours and training, reported the department's director of public information, Mark Vernarelli. "We do a lot of training for parole and probation agents," he said, noting recent delegations from Mexico and the country of Georgia.

A new maximum-security prison in Cumberland, Md., has also hosted delegations from Saudi Arabia, Georgia, the Palestinian territories and Canada, while Baltimore's city jail and pretrial division have hosted delegations from Russia and Ukraine. Vernarelli said a number of groups have been particularly interested in programs that give low-security inmates meaningful community work projects.

"We have inmates doing oyster repopulation and tree planting, cemetery restoration, and Habitat for Humanity home building," Vernarelli explained. "Our K-9 unit was the first in the nation to breed and train its own cell-phone sniffing dogs, and we have trained a number of foreign nations' K-9 units," he added, noting that one British group wanted to learn about Maryland's special prison programs for war veterans.

Gene Farmer is a Maryland instructor and the community supervision administrator for the state's Police and Correctional Training Commissions. He headed a 10-day probation and pre-release training for Mexican prison officials last July that highlighted topics such as risk assessment and HIV/AIDS, as well as incorporating evidence-based practices. Maryland's corrections system has been noted for its commitment to science-based drive to reduce recidivism and substance abuse while increasing the employability of inmates.

Farmer's training program started at 9 in the morning and ended at 10 p.m. It featured field trips to prisons where visitors could practice new skills in real-world simulations, as well as visits to notable tourist sites and some shopping stops in downtown D.C. The training is followed by a delegation's graduation ceremony, whereby officials place the flag of the guest nation on permanent display in the training center's lobby.

To prepare for a delegation from Georgia, Farmer met with representatives in D.C. and then traveled overseas to visit Georgian prisons and "see what their needs were" in a visit funded by the State Department.

Important aspects of the programs for both Georgian and Mexican delegations, he said, were methods to identify and supervise high-risk versus low-risk offenders emerging from prison and how to make "non-intrusive" home visits to someone on parole.

Farmer and his team advise delegates "to take the ideas and concepts of what research shows has worked and make them yours" because "every country has its distinctive history, philosophy and traditions."

Also under INL's aegis, a delegation of nine female corrections professionals from Afghanistan traveled to Nebraska last October as part of a cooperative agreement between the State Department and the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, which has also hosted groups from Costa Rica and Tunisia. The Afghan contingency studied areas of particular concern to that country's women's prisons, including nursery care, prisoner classification, educational and vocational programming, as well as reintegration programs.

The training included ways to search visitors, setting up systems for keeping track of keys, religious activities among inmates, and women's health and infant care. The Nebraska Correctional Center for Women in York is one of only about nine in the United States that has an infant nursery on site, a practice more common in other countries. The prison screens pregnant inmates for nursery use and babies are limited to 18-month stays, "so we try to select mothers who'll be released by then so they won't be separated," explained the facility's warden, John Dahm.

The delegation also visited the city of Lincoln for shopping and relaxation, and the local Afghan community there hosted a dinner for the group — as did, later, the warden and his wife. Dahm, a former history professor who eats lunch with inmates every day, said: "We learned a lot too, and the visit was good for our staff — an eye opener for some of them."

Meanwhile, Colorado has turned the site of a former women's prison in the south central part of the state into a new international training center that has hosted INL-sponsored delegations from Mexico, Brazil, Honduras and Afghanistan, among others.

Colorado's new corrections director, Tom Clements, recently told The Diplomat that he hopes to make "evidence-based practices the focus of the entire Colorado prison system. We're in transition right now, as we focus on data analysis," he said, noting that no one-size-fits-all approach works and that best practices must be adapted to individual facilities.

One of the areas of expertise for which Colorado has already earned distinction is the so-called field of prison industries, which teaches offenders work skills to find jobs after their release. Jack Laughlin, a manger with Colorado Correctional Industries, said the system aims to give jobs to 20 percent of its inmates, though it doesn't always reach that goal.

Colorado's international visitors are typically senior corrections officials interested in the state's job-training incentives system, Laughlin said. Programs such as the furniture shop unit offer such incentives: If an inmate-made item is returned by a customer, for example, the whole shop team loses money, but that same team can jointly earn a "production bonus" for exceptionally good work, Laughlin explained. Other programs train inmates to be fire crews or do website work. There are even a number of farm initiatives, including a large goat dairy and cheese-making site and a water buffalo program.

Another area of shared expertise is high-risk transport: getting inmates to a hospital or another prison. "We also cover case management, various custody levels and general incentives for positive behavior," Laughlin told us in a phone interview — with everything based on best practices.

Worst Offenders Worldwide

The World Justice Project's 2011 Rule of Law Index is a quantitative assessment tool of the American Bar Association that is put together by 2,000 experts worldwide, with a long list of funders that includes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and LexisNexis. Part of the drive in the corrections industry to create more reliable data (see main story above), the index ranks countries on eight factors, such as "absence of corruption," "order and security," "fundamental rights," "open government" and — factor eight — "effective criminal justice."

According to index rankings, the criminal justice "top 10" nations are, in order, Norway, the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Germany and Canada. The United States is number 20, behind the Czech Republic, Japan, Britain, Estonia, Australia, Italy, Poland, Belgium and Spain. (The United States is faulted for discrimination against minorities and lower-income populations.)

In the bottom rung of the 66 nations ranked for criminal justice effectiveness are Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan, followed by Bolivia, Mexico, Bulgaria, Liberia and Venezuela.

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About the Author

Carolyn Cosmos is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

Girls with Wings adds 'Dreams Take Flight' scholarship

Girls with Wings, an organization that promotes girls' interest in aviation, has added a second opportunity to its 2012 scholarship offerings. 

The $500 "Dreams Take Flight" scholarship is intended to fund introductory flight training to encourage achievement of a stated goal, whether as a pilot or in another field of study in aviation. 

There is no prerequisite for flight training to apply. 

Also available is a $1,000 scholarship for a woman who has soloed but has not completed private pilot training. 

The deadline to apply is March 31. For more information, see the website.