Course/Subject: CRI 313 – Institutional Correction

CC’s Voice: Hello UMians! Welcome to this course CRI 313: Institutional
Corrections. As future law enforcers, it is inevitable for you to
be acquainted with law violators. And as humans having the
same social and political rights as yours, it is important for you
to know how to impose penalty to these people.
Without the basic knowledge in correctional administration and
penology, your treatment to them might lead to abuses and
human rights violation without considering the offenders’
welfare and development for their re-integration to the
community.

CO This course deals with the study of the major processes in the
corrections system being undertaken by the Corrections Pillar of
the Philippine Criminal Justice System. This course focuses on
the study and practice of a system management of institutions
concerned with the custody, treatment and rehabilitation of
criminal offenders specifically that of jail or prisons and penal
institutions. This includes the discussion of the mandates,
jurisdiction, power and functions, duties and responsibilities,
historical background, and organizational setup of every
members of the correctional institutions particularly that of the
Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), Provincial
Jail and the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).

Let us begin!
Big Picture A

Big Picture in Focus: ULOa. Explain the contribution of Correction Pillar as

component of the CJS

Metalanguage
In this section, the most essential concepts in relation to Corrections as pillar of
the criminal justice system will be defined:

 Criminal Justice System (CJS) - Process or machinery of the state or

government to protect life and property that relies on due process involving five
pillars: Police, Prosecution, Court, Corrections, and Community.
 Corrections – A branch of the administration of criminal justice charged with the
responsibility for the custody, supervision and rehabilitation of those who judicially
found violated criminal law.
 Correctional Administration – Study of practice of a systematic management of
corrections.
 Imprisonment – The act of confinement of a person in prison; restraint of one’s
personal liberty; forcible detention of a man’s person or his movements.
 Inmate/Person Deprived of Liberty (PDL) – It is a person committed to jail or
prison by a competent court or authority for either of the following reasons: 1. to
serve a sentence after conviction; 2. under trial; and 3. under investigation.
 Penology – A division of criminology that deals with prison management and the
treatment of offenders, and concerned itself with the philosophy and practice of
society in its effort to repress criminal activities.
 Penal Management – Refers to the manner or practice of managing or controlling
places of confinement as in jails or prisons.

Essential Knowledge
To perform the aforesaid big picture (unit learning outcome) for the three (3)
weeks of the course, you need to fully understand the following essential
knowledge that will be laid down in the succeeding pages of discussion.

For Criminal Justice System purposes, the term correction, corrections and
correctional, are words describing a variety of functions typically carried out by
government agencies, and involving the punishment, treatment, and supervision of
persons who have been convicted of crimes, these functions commonly given
through institutional and non-institutional approaches. A correctional system, also
known as a penal system, thus refers to a network of agencies that functions
related to rehabilitating convicted persons through either institution-based or
community-based corrections.

Correction is a branch of administration of criminal justice responsible for

correction and rehabilitation of those persons, who are after observance of due
process, was found violated penal law by competent judicial authority.

As a component of the criminal justice system, correction occupies a crucial

role of rehabilitating convicted persons through the development of individualized
treatment programs which are responsive to the needs of their clients and within
the prescribed standards of existing laws and the United Nations. The ultimate goal
of Correction is to reform and rehabilitate convicted individuals and restore them in
their prior status before the commission of the crime, as law abiding citizen.

Two Approaches of Correction

1. Institutional Correction – rehabilitation or correctional programs takes place

inside correctional facilities or institutions such as national penitentiaries and jails.
2. Non-institutional Correction – rehabilitation or correctional programs take
place within the community. This is otherwise refers to as community-based
correction. Is this approach the convict will not be placed or be released from
correctional facility or jails.
2.1 Community-Based Correction Programs
a. Probation – Is a disposition, under which an accused after conviction and
sentence, is released subject to the conditions imposed by the Court and to the
supervision of a probation officer.
b. Parole – A conditional release from prison of a convicted person upon service of
the minimum of his indeterminate penalty.
c. Pardon – A form of executive clemency which is exercise exclusively by the
Chief Executive. Pardon may be given conditionally or unconditionally.

Agencies of the government charged with correctional responsibility

1. Bureau of Correction (BuCor)
2. Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP)
3. Board of Pardons and Parole (BPP)
4. Parole and Probation Administration (PPA)
5. Provincial and Sub-provincial Jails

General Category of Inmates

1. Sentenced Prisoner (prisoner) – are persons who are convicted by final
judgment of the crime charged against them;
2. Detention Prisoner (detainee) – are persons who are detained for the violation
of law or ordinance and has not yet been convicted; and
3. Persons held for investigation or safekeeping.

Classification of Sentenced Prisoners

1. Insular Prisoner – is a person who is sentenced to serve a prison term of over
three (3) years and it is also known as National Prisoner.
2. Provincial Prisoner – one who is sentenced to a prison term of six (6) months
and one (1) day to three (3) years.
3. City Prisoner – is a person who is sentenced to serve a prison term of one (1)
day to six (6) months.

Inmates Security Classification

BJMP Classification BUCOR Classification
1. High Risk Inmates 1. Super
2. High Profile Inmates 2. Maximum
3. Ordinary Inmates 3. Medium
4. Minimum
 Please note that you are not limited to exclusively refer to this module.
Thus, you are expected to utilize other books, research articles and other
resources that are available in the university’s library e.g. ebrary,
search.proquest.com etc. and other credible internet sources.

Self-Help: You can also refer to the sources below to help you further understand
the lesson:

 Cailing, J. R. (2017) Review Notes on Correctional Administration. Caritas Christi Review Center.
 Alvor, M. B. (2004). The Philippines Corrections System: Current Situation and Issues. Retrieved
from: https://www.unafei.or.jp/publications/pdf/RS_No67/No67_09PA_Alvor.pdf
Big Picture B

Big Picture in Focus: ULOb. Discuss the historical background of

punishment.

Metalanguage
In this section, the most essential terms in connection with the historical
background of punishment will be defined:

 Punishment - The redress that the state takes against an offending member.
Involves pain or suffering produced by design and justified by some value that
the suffering is assumed to have. It is a means of social control, a device to
cause people to become cohesive and induce conformity thus it is necessary to
restore moral equilibrium and for grounds of social utility.
 Capital Punishment – sentencing a convicted person to death by means of
hanging, burning, immersing in boiling oil, feeding to wild animals and other
barbaric ways.
 Corporal Punishment – Any physical pain inflicted short of death.
 Public Humiliation or Shaming – Is affected by use of stocks and pillory,
docking stool, docking stool, branding, shaving off the hair and etc.
 Banishment or Transportation – This is the sending or putting away of an
offender which was carried out either by a prohibition against coming into
specified territory.

Essential Knowledge
To perform the aforesaid big picture (unit learning outcome) for the three (3)
weeks of the course, you need to fully understand the following essential
knowledge that will be laid down in the succeeding pages of discussion.

The earliest form of punishment was death, torture, maiming and

banishment. The jail was introduced in Medieval Europe as a place of confinement
of persons arrested and undergoing trial, and for those convicted of minor offenses
such as drunkenness, gambling, and prostitution. Later, convicted offenders were
chained to galleys to man the ships of war. England, France and Spain used the
transportation system of punishment by indenturing their convicts to penal colonies
where they served as slaves until they completed their service of sentences.

Early Codes

1. Babylonian and Sumerian Codes

 Lex Talionis (eye for an eye) based on Sumerian Code (1860 B.C.)
 Code of King Hammurabi (1750 B.C.) – Enacted by King Hammurabi, the
sixth Babylonian King. It is consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishment,
adjusting ‘’an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’’ of lex talionis as graded
 depending on social status, of slaves versus free man.
 Book of Covenant (1250 BC)
2. Crime and Sin – ‘’Get right with God’’, directive that the offender must take
peace with God through repentance and atonement. The early codes even the Ten
Commandments were designed to make the offender’s punishment acceptable to
both society and God.
3. Roman and Greek Codes
 Code of Justinian – the legal code of ancient Rome; codified under
Justinian which is the basis for many modern systems of civil law.
 Code of Draco in Greece – concept of public good is more important than
individual injury or vengeance.
4. Middle Ages - Reformation was viewed as a process of religious, not secular,
redemption. As in early civilizations, the sinner had to pay two debts, one to society
and another to God.
 Inquisition – A former Roman Catholic tribunal for the discover and
punishment of heresy.

Ancient Forms of Punishment

 Death Penalty – this was affected by burning, boiling in oil, breaking at the
wheel, drowning, hanging, etc.
 Physical Torture – this was the so-called corporal punishment, which was
effected by mutilation, maiming, whipping, etc.
 Social Degradation – the purpose of this was to put the offender to shame
or humiliation. This was affected by branding, use of ducking stool, stocks,
pillory, etc.
 Banishment
 Aside from Banishment and hard labor offenders were also sentenced to
provide hard labor for public works including the building of military
fortifications

Contemporary Forms of Punishment

 Imprisonment – putting offenders in a prison for the purpose of protecting
the public and at the same time rehabilitating them by undergoing
institutional treatment programs.
 Parole – is defined as a procedure by which prisoners are selected for
release on the basis of individual response and progress with the
correctional institution and a service by which they are provided with
necessary guidance as they serve the remainder of their sentence in the
free community.
 Probation – it is a procedure under which a defendant found guilty of a
crime is released by the court without imprisonment subject to the condition
imposed by the court and subject to the supervision of probation officer.

Justification of Punishment
a. Retribution – punishment of an offender was carried out in the form of
vengeance.
- ‘’An eye for an eye’’ philosophy
- an exchange for Retaliatory Principle
b. Expiation or Atonement – this was in the form of group vengeance
c. Deterrence or Exemplarity – punishment gives lesson to the offender by
showing to others what would happen to them if they violate the law.
d. Protection – by placing offenders in prison society is protected from further
criminal depredation of criminals.
e. Reformation – society’s interest can be best served by helping the prisoner
become a law-abiding citizen and productive upon his return to the community by
requiring him to undergo an intensive program of rehabilitation.

Theories Justifying Imposition of Penalty/Punishment

1. Prevention Theory – the state must punish the criminal to prevent or suppress
the danger to the state arising from the criminal acts of the offender.
2. Self-defense Theory – the state has the right to punish the criminal as a
measure of self-defense so as to protect society from the threat and wrong inflicted
by the criminal.
3. Reformation Theory – the object of punishment is to correct and reform the
offenders.
4. Exemplary Theory – the criminal is punished to serve as an example to deter
others from committing crimes.
5. Justice Theory – the crime must be punished by the state as an act of
retributive justice, a vindication of absolute right and moral law violated by the
criminal.

Judicial Conditions of Penalty

1. Must be productive of suffering – without however affecting the integrity of the
human personality.
2. Must be commensurate with the offense – different crimes must be punished
with different penalties.
3. Must be personal – no should be punished for the crime of another.
4. Must be legal – it is the consequence of a judgment according to law.
5. Must be certain – no one may escape its effects.
6. Must be equal to all
7. Must be correctional/reformative

Schools of Thought in Penology

1. Classical School – among its proponents in included Beccaria, Rousseau,
Montesquieu and Voltaire, maintained the doctrine of psychological hedonism,
that the individual calculates pleasures and pains in advance action and
regulates his conduct by results of his calculations.
2. Neo-Classical School – arose at the time of the French Revolution,
maintained that while the Classical Doctrine was correct in general, it should be
modified in certain details; since children and lunatics cannot calculate
pleasures and pain, they should not be regarded as criminals or be punished.
3. Positive School – denied individual responsibility and reflected an essentially
non-punitive reaction to crime and criminality. Since the criminal was held to be
not responsible for his acts, he was not be punished.

Please note that you are not limited to exclusively refer to this module.
Thus, you are expected to utilize other books, research articles and other
resources that are available in the university’s library e.g. ebrary,
search.proquest.com etc. and other credible internet sources.
Self-Help: You can also refer to the sources below to help you further understand
the lesson:

 Lambert, T. (2020) A brief History of Punishments. Retrieved from:

http://www.localhistories.org/pun.html
 The Infographics Show (2018). Worst Punishments in The History of Mankind. Retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew1edqVqCu0