The Role Of Corruption In The Houston Police Department

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As a newly promoted Lieutenant in charge of jail operations in the Houston Police Department (HPD), there are several critical issues regarding the jail environment that require immediate attention such as, inadequate conditions of confinement, health care, security measures, and sexual misconduct between correctional officers and inmates. The aforementioned issues are a controversial topic all across the U.S. and it usually attracts media attention and creates negative publicity towards the Department of Corrections. A lieutenant of jail operations is responsible for his or he shift and oversees multiple areas of the jail facility. Responsibilities of a jail lieutenant includes but is not limited to the following: (1) coordinate shift activities; …show more content…

The correctional subculture is not described as extensively as the police subculture; however, many elements of misconduct and criminal activities are similar (Pollock, 2014). The parallelism of corruption between the police and correctional officer are as follows: (1) use of force; (2) acceptance of gratuities from inmates; (3) mistreatment/sexual coercion of inmates; and (4) abuse of authority for personal gains (Pollock, 2014). According to Pardue et al. (2011), there are two types of sexual coercion found within the prison subculture and they are as follows: (1) coercion between convicts; and (2) coercion between convicts and staff members (p. 289). The Department of Corrections is aware of staff sexual abuse and harassment of women prisoners, and they have been playing “catch up” to accommodate the challenges of this persisting problem (Clear et al., 2013, p. …show more content…

For the purpose of this paper, the Houston Police Department’s organizational structure will be used to illustrate the chain of command. The jail operations are designated to Strategic Operations as you can see from the diagram below, and it is overseen by the executive assistant chief, assistant chief and captain. The captain over jail operations is responsible for all three shifts at the city jail, and he assigns three lieutenants to supervise each shift (days, evenings, and nights). Within Houston’s jail facility, there are both classified officers and civilians performing various assignments and tasks. The immediate concern that was brought to attention pertains to a sexual misconduct allegation from a female inmate against a correctional

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